The photo prompt offered to us by #Tanka Tuesday host Colleen Chesebro for the Tuesday Tanka Challenge is a sunflower. Photograph by Terri Webster Schrandt, from secondwindleisure.com. Thank you for this inspiration.
For this challenge, I wrote three poems. Each poem has six lines with syllables between eight to ten (thereabouts). I include a haiku just in case the first three poems don’t fit the syllabic poetry rules.
Sunflowers for Sale
SUNFLOWERS FOR SALE Cut sunflowers trapped in suffrage Once wild spirits, now confined in a pail, Bundled beauty, a fleeting stage, In the city’s brutalist concrete jail, Sold for one moment of transient grace, Life severed, contained for its sunshine face. Lesley Clare Scoble, August 2023
Sunflower in a Terracotta Pot
SUNFLOWER IN A TERRACOTTA POT The sunflower stood alone in a terracotta pot It is all by itself—is it left on the shelf? The sun shines upon the solitary flower head Hour after hour after hour It cannot move from the lonely spot. Instead, it grows tall and strong In the urban jungle of night and song. Lesley Clare Scoble, August 2023
Sunflower Crop
SUNFLOWER CROP A field of blooms face up toward the sun Side by side, they lean and sway—to and fro A hundred suns basking beneath the one Row upon row, day by day—they grow Sunflower crops in a farmland field Cooking oil is the yield Lesley Clare Scoble, August 2023
Sunflower Haiku
Field of Sunflowers Basking in the summer sun Golden beauty blooms. Lesley Scoble, August 2023
Where did our petals go?
In late summer, on a walk in the Sussex Downs, we came across this field of sunflowers that were denuded of petals. Their sunny blooms were gone. One of the of the wilting seed heads has a face that to me, appears to ask, Where did our petals go?
A little bit of personal history
Sunflowers
At seventeen, I sold my paintings in London’s Bayswater Road, weekend art market. The first painting I sold there was an oil painting of sunflowers.
My father took this photo of me with it outside our home in Ravenscourt Park.
I hung my paintings on the fencing along the Bayswater Road and spent the weekend flogging my work. I was well chuffed when the sunflowers sold straight away.
Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright, (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.
LesleyScoble.com 
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