COME WITH ME INTO THE FIELD OF SUNFLOWERS

 

Driving to Elk Rapids, I was nearly stopped in traffic at the sight of fields of sunflowers along US-31 going north.  Cars had pulled over onto the shoulder to pick and photograph the flowers.  The scene was so lovely I came back the next day for a second dose of picture-taking.  I was reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem The Sunflowers.  I’ve chosen lines from her poem to title this week’s blog and to illustrate my images.

 

 “Come with me into the field of sunflowers…

 

Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines creak like ship masts…

 

 

their green leaves, so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky sugars of the sun…

 

 Come with me to visit the sunflowers…

 

 

they are shy but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,
the wandering crows…

 

 Don't be afraid to ask them questions!
Their bright faces, which follow the sun, will listen…

 

 and all those rows of seeds -
each one a new life!…

 

 

hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe, is lonely, the long work of turning their lives
into a celebration is not easy…

 

 

Come and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.”  --Mary Oliver