In-and-out shadow clouds pressed late morning air,
Squeezing the sweet odor of a summer storm
Heavy with deep August plant oils and dried earth,
While I turned a lazy spade to commit
A container of neglected lemon balm
To an easy death, casually mourning
The loss of glossy leaves in my cool desire
To push forward autumn’s purpley drama
Radiating from the centers of frilled kale
And splashing the watercolor outer limits
Of johnny jump ups and blueberry thrill pansies
Where ink-blot butterflies bled insect eternity;
But dog days had weeks to burn, so I yearned
For a sunflower farm where row on hot row
Of young blooms clocked their dawn-dusk journey
To a myth-killing circadian beat
Of east to west solar stares, blindly starstruck
By cloudless brilliance or shafts of rain-thinned light
Until their nightfall shrug and turn from west to east;
But #sunflower seekers flash mobbed the fields—
Zombied by selfie-stick scepter fixation—
And hoarded the climb of golden coronas
Regally braced by stiff-haired raw-green bracts;
They broke and trampled disks of seed-packed spirals,
Plowing under headless stalks in their smiley-face rush
To Instagram a dissipating dream field.
Was I any different—because I was there, after all?
Beautiful. The# and Instagram stood out. Why did you use them in a poem capturing nature as this does,? Took me out of it.. was that the purpose?
I think I get it. The title should have clued me in. The juxtaposition is interesting.