in return

in return
for KK on her birthday

sunflowering_2

the sun flowers
bow their heavy
heads beribboned
in yellow lion’s
mane, faces
honeycombed
in seed,
‘gone to seed’
they say, yet
clearly the
best is yet
to come
in those
stippled packets
the finches
would pluck
to plunder,
enough of them
to line up a
planting in
rows to the
sea,
and you,
sunflowering
in your face,
the kindly
brightly sun
not always
brightly
seen,
times
sun bleak
in cloud
sun splintering
in shower into
moods dark
as buried
seed,
you
sunflowering
into grace
remind us
what was
given in
you this day
could outplace
any thing
we might
gift you
in return

A ‘vanilla’ reading of this piece may be heard here below, while in the background we hear a 1994 recording of Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major,
Op. 44 (opening movement ‘Allegro brillante’); the performers are: Martha Argerich (piano), Dora Schwarzberg (violin), Lucia Hall (violin), Nobuko Imai (viola), & Mischa Maisky (cello)