The Death of the Sunflowers

(From Bend, Oregon)
Sunflowers, tired from their endless celebration of summer, hang over the fence top as if at any moment they will grow large enough to jump over the fence and go off to catch the first flight south to escape the cruel frost that will surely soon kill them. Birds become their vultures, picking them apart, scattering parts of them on both sides of the fence. They were so close to making it. Just a few inches taller …

I fear we are days away from their demise. As if soon, Mr. Pumpkin will come to finish the job that the birds have started, hacking off their bright, smiling heads and leaving sunflower parts scattered well beyond the neighborhood. That evil Mr. Pumpkin.

I find myself not prepared to celebrate this change, to think of cold winter days. I am, for whatever reason, imprisoned in the thought of summer. Running tops and shorts, feeling the heat suck the moisture right out of my body. Layers and layers of sun screen. Dusty trails that only compound the problem. Cool water sprinkles me from the paddles of my kayak.

I am just like the sunflowers tired from the endless celebration of summer, but waiting to escape the first frost.

I drift into a daze of island fantasies… Australia maybe and Bundi Beach. Or a small Asian island … or maybe Central America with the humbling humidity mixed with heat that would make anyone wish for cooler times. Or the French Riviera, with topless French girls and rocky beaches that make the land almost useless except for site seeing. Or Spanish olive groves, tucked right along the coast, mixed with white houses and roads that go nowhere fast….

I am sleepy and must go to bed. I am sure I will wake well before the morning to a cold dark house. I will curl up and read, wondering what I will do for the day. And wondering if Mr Pumpkin killed the sunflowers last night.