Driving out west of town
There is a field, maybe part of an abandoned farm,
Filled with sunflowers.
There should be a name for a group of sunflowers,
Rank on jumble they stand
Lion-faced their ragged yellow manes roar in a June rain shower.
Their faces a cloud confusion.
This field of flowers could be called a landscape of sunflowers
A beauty of sunflowers
A Saint Francis of sunflowers
A van Gogh of sunflowers
A peal
A heart
A tender
A good grove of sunflowers.
Then it was gone
Somewhere behind me,
And the next thing comes into view
Between rain drops
Green and colorful and new.
Marc Janssen lives in a house with a wife who likes him and a cat who loathes him. Regardless of that turmoil, his poetry can be found scattered around the world in places like Penumbra, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the annual Salem Poetry Festival, and was a 2020 nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate.
Foxglove Journal 