Poem - Sunflowers in the Sky

 

Sunflowers in the Sky

By Aleta Gay Grimball O’Brien

From the light, cool and dry days

To the humid, second skin damp…

The atmosphere changed

 

Evenings that once fell dark

Now linger gold longer, as if the sunflower

Has bloomed inside the sky

And refuses to turn her face away

 

Yet alarms, deadlines, and office routines

Still texture the days, moving inside

The machinery of ordinary life

 

Spreadsheets still get printed

Coffee still cools beside keyboards,

Endless responsibility of season,

 

And somewhere beyond

Fluorescent hours,

Summer keeps calling softly through

The window – 

 

Blackberries sweet on the tongue

Sunflowers and agapanthus line gardens

Bees hug petals suspended

Between rain and sunset

 

Magnolias -

The stars among the trees -

Bloom, slowly, heavily, ceremonially

As thought they have nowhere else to be

 

And I stand inside the season

Looking outward,

Longing to belong to it fully

While summer tugs gently at my sleeve