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.

Fighter

close up photo of the first leaf of a sunflower pushing from the earth, with a shoe print on top of it
My housemate accidentally stepped on a patch we’d sowed sunflowers in, and the next morning, the first leaf had emerged

Smothered underfoot,
weight of the earth over it,
sunflower rises.