What Grows in Gerbil Food

One day I opened the gerbil cage
to clean out all the muck.
I tried to dump out the food dish,
But al the food was stuck.

I made a quick note to myself
about the dripping water.
It had leaked into the dish
and glued up all the fodder.

I got a fork out from a drawer
and pried out all the seeds.
Very soon I was to see
some heroic deeds.

Under all the gerbil muck,
under the dripping spout,
some of those seeds inside the dish
had just begun to sprout.

I removed the small sunflowers;
some soil held the plants.
It seemed as though they grew two feet
every time I glanced.

Very soon I had sixteen
of these miraculous flowers.
Some would grow to eight feet high
with their surviving powers.

I'd tried to grow sunflowers before;
they'd gained no altitude.
But I received a sunflower garden
from what grows in gerbil food.