Sunflowers

I love sunflowers. I mean, here is a flower that grows bigger than me. It is gigantic. And the seeds are so visible, so wildly bountiful, and so orderly arranged.

I see them growing in the community garden, and I admire their towering, poetic, lilting stance.

There are two local farms that plant thousands of sunflowers – acres and acres - and let you walk among them. It is breath-taking. So many circles of purple-black with a rim of yellow against a backdrop of greens and a light blue sky – like nature is looking with 10,000 eyes upon the world.

Surprisingly, some of the petals are not just yellow, but purple, or red, or sometimes white-tipped.

We sometimes bring one of these sunflowers home with us. They are heavy. They last a long time. The seeds make this vivid, swirling pattern, and they taste delicious.

I feel happy around a sunflower.

Perhaps I am holding a piece of the sun in my hand.