I saw a field — once sunflowers —

now reaped at harvest time.

Just stiffened stalks and wrinkled leaves,

and one head past its prime.

Those glorious yellow petals,

drooping — facing the ground,

were the only way I knew the

crop that’d been mowed down.

How sad to be a survivor

who lives by a bowed head

once the ones that faced the sun

have joined the newly dead.