Birth

photo of sunflower seedlines in the ground
Sunflowers in the making

Slicing through packed earth,
seeds crack open to first leaves—
children of the sun.

Decay

Photo of an artwork by Shamsia Hassani. Art shows an Afghan woman holding a bunch of dandelions behind her back while a war tank rolls on in front of her.
Art by Shamsia Hassani, an Afghan graffiti artist. Artwork commission for OzAsia festival in Adelaide, 2022

Shelling left and right,
corroded metallic smoke—
my flowers wither.

—

See more of Hassan’s work on her Instagram profile.

Closed loop

photo of a bottlebrush flower with the sunlight streaming through in the top right corner of the photo
Callistemon (commonly known as bottlebrushes), a genus of shrubs in the Myrtaceae family, endemic to Australia

Fed by sun and rain—
feeding gold honeyeaters—
bright bottlebrushes.