Sunflowers

To Sarah, who told me, walking through sunflowers, “Always keep poetry in your life.”

Heaven, to me, is a field of endless Sunflowers.

Summer 2010 on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama under blazing sun, burnishing blue sky white, humidity sat fat on the earth, and I harvested sunflowers.

Walking between rows of green and gold, stalks heavy in my arms, biceps and shoulders burning, bees fat and pollen-plump droned past my face, in my ear, through reaching fingers, nail beds black, while sweat—soup of salt, dirt, and sunscreen— rolled thick down neck and chest, small of back and back of knee, unable to evaporate.

And all around me Sunflowers. Tall, bold, golden, beautiful, beautiful sunflowers.

I looked up into faces braver, bolder, more daring, than my own, into faces of a faith I have yet to see in a human being, faces following the sun, arching and leaning towards the light, always. I have searched for conviction, soul beating in hunger for years, and if I ever found what they see looking towards the sky, then I would hold to it tighter than to my final breath.

I reach up and cup a sunflower’s face in my hands, a face larger than my own, pulling it towards me, breathing deeply. And smack in the middle, where brown swirls to dew, I kiss it. Have you ever done that? Have you ever kissed the face of a sunflower?

Further down the row, in the center of a flower, sits a bee— still—, and I know without touching it that its body is dry, legs stiff, wings crisp, for bees, vibrant creatures, are never still. As I gently pluck the brittle body from the flower, I decide that if I could choose my final resting place, then I too would choose the face of a sunflower, and there encounter the world as I encounter death.

Then having encountered that grand adventure, the ones I leave behind, after harvesting my organs like I harvested these flowers, will take my body as I take this bee’s, and bury it where sunflowers will grow. Grow from my shoulders, my eye sockets, my womb, from between my ribs, curling roots between fingers, holding my hand until it too is root and stem and leaf and pollen and petal. Using my body to grow Bright. Bold. Beautiful. The way I will remember you.

But before I lay my body to yours, before I follow that bee, teach me to stand tall in this world. Teach me to stand bold and bright and golden beautiful. Teach me to live daringly, standing my ground and turning towards the light, always.

Then, knowing how to rise, teach me how to set.

To give myself completely.

And to walk between rows of green and gold in a field of endless Sunflowers.