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poem and image in Abyss & Apex!

What I like about Abyss & Apex is the chance to share the genesis of the work in a space adjacent to the poem.

In this case, a line from Tanya Tagaq’s song Ikualajut was the origin point: “sunflowers don’t turn to the moon.” The song–the whole album–is beautiful and devastating. I listened to it many times before I started wondering about the sunflower. Wondering what the young sunflower, head twisting to follow the sun, would do during a solar eclipse.

However, with heliotropism in sunflowers, there is another stage during flower development–anthesis–during which the flowers become fixed to the east and no longer track movement of the sun. Therefore, the seed-ripe head of the sunflower in the poem does not follow the moon–instead, the moon passes over its face, reflecting light at night, or casting shadows by day, should the moon pass across the face of the sun.

The image is ‘Sun and Moon’ comprised of two photographs taken just outside my house: one of a partial solar eclipse laid on top of another photograph I took from almost the same spot of a volunteer sunflower. That particular image catches a young sunflower–one whose head might yet be turned by something bright.

Image note: I love the tweaking John did on the contrast. Extra credit: You can find the original solar eclipse photo as the key image for ‘Essays’ on my home page.