Sunflowers

Stemming endless desire to see the sun, fan, cuddle Rays thrust in folds of petals thick in envy, dazzle Seeds of oil and industry, thick green rooted pride armies Worshiping arching god, gazing craned necks, offering unison

Their love for bask parades, flasked tirades for silent baths A wild wind surrender, evaporating storm drilled clouds Through their lover’s piercing spectral bouquet of photons Cyclic summer long romance, enraged seed packs

Until the storms win the argument and their god tilts South Abandons bedroom, battle field, retreats to a virgin hemisphere And they are left to deflate, grow ashen, gray, wither, whimper Sulk and slip into a winter of discontent, chewed, frazzled, hair Disheveled, morning same as evening, craning ritual fear frozen

But Vivaldi wrote it so, summer does return with vigor and spring And fall do not retard the joy for sunflowers to adorn the horizon In armies dressed and dancing growing by the glow of their lover Returned from a long voyage where sisters were deflowered, born A destiny absent in less tempered tales, glorious and soiled.

Bedros Afeyan 7-29-2011 Pleasanton, CA