I will not write of daffodils,
Nor will I praise the rose.
Don't get me wrong - I see their beauty.
I just don't connect to their charm.

Sweet and tender they shine,
Picked, sold, gifted as a treat.
Beauty to look at, easy to get.
I do not want what I haven't got.

Instead, I'll write of sunshine,
Of untamable feral perfection,
Of things that bite
Should you try to claim them.

I'll write of striking composition,
Wilting within our gardened trip,
Yet blooming when undisturbed and wild,
Sharp-edged and stubbornly bright.

I'll write of what my soul needs most,
I'll write of gorse.

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low sheaf—
full of faith, full of grief.

Here the immaculate dawn
requires belief of the leafed earth
and she is the myth of the mown grain—
golden and humble in all its weary worth.

I believe I wrote the first version of this poem toward the end of my senior year of high school, around age 18 in late 1976. To my recollection this is my only poem directly influenced by the “sprung rhythm” of Dylan Thomas (moreso than that of Gerard Manley Hopkins). But I was not happy with the fourth line and put the poem aside for more than 20 years, until 1998, when I revised it. But I was still not happy with the fourth line, so I put it aside and revised it again in 2020, nearly half a century after originally writing the poem! Keywords/Tags: sprung, rhythm, myth, gorse, thistles, wheat, mown, grain, sheaf, faith, grief, golden, humble