Posted by Minni

The Secret Life of Sunflowers

My favorite type of flower is the sunflower. It is born in spring and dies at the end of summer when leaves begin to ripen and the warm of vernal months subside to the changing season. The sunflower is one life, one plant, one flower: the head of a body made to nurture the one. And through the hot months if perseveres, taking in energy from the sun and converting it into a spectacular showcase of warm yellow. The face of the flower is resilient, never sun burnt but rather welcoming the balmy rays cast from the nearest star. And so it is modeled: in the likeness of that star.
The young flowers, before they become brittle and set in their ways, will follow the sun on its daily path trailed in the sky, east to west. Illuminated by the dawn breaking beams, they lift their faces to the glory of morning and bow to the power of the sun at the later hours as the blazing orb falls off the brink of the western horizon. In the hours between the rise and set, at midday, the flexible young awe-struck flowers will beam upward, straight up, like noon hands on a clock. But when too many of these cycles come to pass the flower chooses a stance it likes best. Some stay tilted to morning, others, more submissive, nod in poise of evening. Still, the star soldiers of the crop choose to stand tall at all hours frozen to the stance of noon, and unrelenting, even under the face of the sweltering summer sun.
Now I will describe the beginning of sunflowers. Indeed, their derivation from the earth is in a whole, almost (if not more) of a magnificent adventure than their bowing out.
First they sprout at a disadvantage: how crows love to peck off their succulent cotyledons! Then, off course there are those just not meant for this world, they poke their fragile stems just above the soil fighting for survival, but it just is not in them to live past their first day and they are soon beaten by the hard world they find themselves in, shriveling back into the crack in the earth from whence they came, gracefully admitting defeat and welcoming what death has to offer: they have nothing to regret in so very short a life.
But there are others quite on the contrary that start out so strong and promising from the seed: troopers from the very beginning. But funny thing about those overconfident ones, they almost always seem to meet misfortunate ends. Such show offs they are, tempting the hungry crows and squirrels in their vainglorious entrance to the humble community of the garden. Boastful in their beauty to yet so dangerous an audience; naivety and conceit become a deadly potion when mixed correctly.
And so the arrogant sproutlings and the weak seed sprouts meet their early ends. Those rarely get to spend a week on this planet, as it is not theirs. Gone, going, gone.
But don’t be discouraged, there are still some citizens of the sunflower bed that I have yet to mention! No, I have not forgotten about those late seeds that hide away until the first battle is silenced. They shoot out of the earth when all is thought to be over and they are neither very weak nor overly strong or proud. They are mediocre, genuine in life, not posing a threat to anything and joyful, joyful, joyful: shameless in the autonomy of their own spirit. They reach for the sun before they even grow arms to reach with, ever hopeful and growing, so passionate for life! Some of them do meet early ends, as we all know how greedy slugs and pregnant butterflies patrol unpolluted gardens in the warm months of the year. But this is an occurrence of nature and no fault is reflected on the innocent sun-sprouts and when those ones meet misfortunate ends a certain amount of regret is to be felt for them; overcoming so much just to be extinguished at the brink of their prime.
Yet still, there are the chosen ones. The ones that survive to maturity: the very ones I mentioned at the beginning. Yes, these are what we know as sunflowers, but as outside spectators we know very little of their previous adventures, their accomplishments and what they have overcome. But they are the chosen ones; humble, yet invincible in life. Sunflowers are true survivors, masters of the game of life, worshippers of the noonday sun, and when they do come to their inevitable ends (for we all do on this temporary earth), when the sun sets on their fortunate lives, they all hang their heads regardless of the stance they took earlier in life. They hang their pretty heads, (not in sorrow, for they have nothing to remorse, nor in defeat for they have been victors from the very beginning) but they hang their heads in respect for the earth; in respect for generations to come. It would be ignorant to pay homage to the sun alone, when indeed it is to the earth that they owe their initial existence. So they bow out in grace, subsiding to the oncoming season for it is not theirs, and they lend their seeds back to the welcoming soil, to the promise of a spring to come. The little seeds are set to sleep until spring commences when the pivot of Earth’s axis leans in their favor. The seeds will then awaken to the melted snow softens the waking. They will come alive in to a world that may or may not be for them; yet for some amount of time (whether it be long or short) they all will find themselves in same the garden which hosted their triumphant ancestors.
One day I should like very much to learn more of the life of sunflowers, but then again perhaps it is not mine to know. Perhaps it is not my place as a gardener to interfere with their system, polluting the garden with insecticides, or chasing the crows and squirrels, because it is all a part (in some way I believe) of their secret life, a life that is not mine to change. Indeed I too am an outside spectator, an onlooker of their lovely show, and in the end I can say I am annually entertained. No, their show never bored me, it doesn’t bore me now, and it will never bore me, year after year. I am quite content as I am when I water the flowerbed, knowing that I myself play a part in the secret life of sunflowers as they play a part in mine.