if still alive
my mom would be celebrating
her 40-year wedding anniversary
with my dad today
i knew there was a reason
i was drawn to wearing her
bright sunflower clothes this morning
sunflowers
July 9, 2025
a family
a train ride
and thousands of sunflowers
in fields rolling past
at 266 km/h
and somehow it all reminds me of
van Gogh’s paintings
and how much i want to become
an impressionist
~~~
i just got so confused
as to why the baby in front of me
wasn’t crying in response to the
baby crying in the next train car over
and then i remembered that babies are not dogs
who bark and howl to be heard by others
of their species…
~~~
this whole trip
is a whirlwind
this whole life
kind of is
too
at least i have a train car
inside which to sit and write
all my silly poems
~~~
every
single
time
another train passes directly by
i
am
startled
~~~
there are
so many more palm trees
than i ever would have expected
in Europe
[i think that’s on me tho,
because climate is a known thing]
~~~
i think
if you’ve seen
any
van Gogh painting
of nature
or landscape
you’ve seen the full spirit of
what these trains speed past
February 10, 2023
sunflowers
are my favorite flower.
something about the big, bright, open yellow
captivates me
and makes me
(almost always slightly secretly dour)
smile so huge.
i often forget that half of the flower is brown,
the earth/
the base of nature/
it wouldn’t be a sunflower without that circle of non-yellow;
the seeds to form new flowers in the future
the giving after giving
of joy/
of new life/
of another kind of open-ness.
i know it’s a bit toxic
to constantly give,
but take it from the sunflower:
sometimes giving gives us our own beauty.
kipventures 