Poetry of Kansas

The Sunflower Of Kansas

Like those pioneers who fought their way
Inch by inch and smiled,
The tall sunflower marches, marches on.
 
O you aristocrats among the flowers and grasses,
Bluegrass, well-bred white clover,
Lily and rose,
Wonder-working alfalfa,
See how you wither in the Kansas sun,
Unless man shelter or nourish you.
 
The sunflower is a fighter
Who asks no odds and seeks no plaudits.
Left alone, he thrives.
And thrusts his yellow head almost through the clouds
To the resplendent sun,
His foster-brother.

__Claude M. Older.

Contemporary Kansas Poetry
Helen Rhoda Hoopes
Page 97
(Kansas City: Joseph D. Havens Company. 1927)

 
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