Amidst the sunflowers
in full flagrant flowering,
I, too, begin to sprout
fat orange petals
and feel my head heavy
with growing seeds.
My mind becomes sun-drunk
and I gold and I spiral.
This is why you might see me
standing still in the garden
amongst the thick stalks,
though there is much to do.
Some animals freeze
as an instinct to survive,
and that may be true of me, too,
but I am not still out of fear.
Stillness saves me
not because I hide,
but because peace
seems to find me more
easily then and the body
unclenches and becomes
a blooming thing that lives
for the sake of blooming
right here where it’s planted.