Fair Flower

a sunflower challenged a rose to a duel:
you're not only stubby but you're also cruel
those thorns in your side have hurt many a lover
and any that pick you will surely discover
that your shallow beauty comes only with pain...
he stopped, feeling no further need to explain

the rose swallowed the barbs and replied with aplomb:
I may often grace a distraught lover's tomb
and surely my crimson, the color of blood
but I can do yellow as well as your bud
and yes, I don't follow the traveling sun
its light stops for me, because I am the one

and so they kept at it, a petal for petal
a flowery duel to test any mettle
until craven ravens got the sunflower's seeds
and the rose's great vines overran with green weeds
and the garden turned fallow, and dirt turned to dust
for the must be a winner, surely there must.