Sunflowers

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

There are many kinds in my garden.

I grow them as teachers.

I love them; how they embody joy

in a way I find curious and, on days that

I won’t tally,

elusive.

What is it like, I wonder, to be the thing

on which soft bumble bees alight (they are soft,

I have petted them) to collect their dusted gold,

or butterflies – the fritillaries, sachem skippers,

and monarchs – nectar their brave, dazzling lives,

or a differential grasshopper sits long enough to

complete his survey and report unto God

about the things going on down here?

If I chose not to plant them, it wouldn’t be such

a happy garden, and this could be one of those

unlived lives that catch your eye at check out.

It’s true.

I’ll tell you that Summer has gone and they – the

sunflowers - are now bent at the waist by

the weight of their heads, looking

like skinny monks at prayer seeking

emptiness

as fulfillment.

This is when I begin to listen most carefully to the soft

om resonating across the beds of straw at their feet.

Hear now, the wisdom gained from two months

of standing still,

and in the last breath of a well-seasoned death

that I record in my cells,

a vow of endless servitude:

“Now, I shall feed the birds.”

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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