Flower for the Day Tickseed sunflower 10-13-21

This fall bloomer is Tickseed sunflower (Bidens aristosa). It is not a true sunflower (Helianthus). It fills the wildflower garden. The flower heads are like daisies. The fruit is flattened and black with 2 needlelike awns(stiff bristle) which attach themselves to clothing. Thus the name beggar tick. I have spent many an hour removing these from my clothes by hand.

 

Still

A. R. Ammons - 1926-2001

I said I will find what is lowly  and put the roots of my identity  down there:  each day I'll wake up  and find the lowly nearby,  a handy focus and reminder,  a ready measure of my significance,  the voice by which I would be heard,  the wills, the kinds of selfishness  I could  freely adopt as my own:    but though I have looked everywhere,  I can find nothing  to give myself to:  everything is    magnificent with existence, is in   surfeit of glory:  nothing is diminished,  nothing has been diminished for me:    I said what is more lowly than the grass:  ah, underneath,  a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:  I looked at it closely  and said this can be my habitat: but  nestling in I  found  below the brown exterior  green mechanisms beyond the intellect  awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up    and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:  I found a beggar:  he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying  him any attention: everybody went on by:  I nestled in and found his life:  there, love shook his body like a devastation:  I said  though I have looked everywhere  I can find nothing lowly  in the universe:    I whirled through transfigurations up and down,  transfigurations of size and shape and place:    at one sudden point came still,  stood in wonder:  moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent  with being!