Sunday, August 14, 2011

Personal Hope

 —Photo by Katy Brown, Davis


SUNFLOWERS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Who planted them along this gravel
shoulder, where nothing ought to grow?
Wasteland between edge of pavement
and highway right-of-way fence—

it blooms with tough, unwatered suns
rising on straggly stalks. Miles
of sunflowers—your herb of personal
hope. When I opened your last

letter, black seeds spilled out. Sun-
flower seeds like beads of faith. One
seed for every year since your diagnosis.
Seeds from sunflowers you planted

with that news, your yard
full of sunflowers. But how shall I
explain this strip of desert—between
hot asphalt and irrigated fields—

scruffily, vibrantly yellow
the length of all these travel-miles? Your
flowers of personal hope—
planted by some hand we didn't see.

____________________

—Medusa



Happy birthday, frank andrick!