I searched debatably long and hard to find a poem to accompany this image so that I did not have to write words to it myself. Surely someone before me with a mightier pen has felt the twist of conflicting emotions, of feeling so fully so many feelings at once.
I stumbled upon this flower at the edge of the sunflower field, its progression without question — through water and light and proper pH in the soil, its unfurling inevitable. I smiled in knowing that perhaps all we need to proceed is to just grow toward the light. Sometimes even without the light or the water or the proper pH we’ll just keep growing because it’s inevitable that life moves forward. That made me feel full of a promise I didn’t have to keep with a pinky but one that was established without ever subscribing to the idea that everything moves toward its destination without question.
But as I stood there, staring, bringing my camera back down to my hip, I didn’t want to feel good. I didn’t want to grow unknowingly or unfurl my own precarious petals just because that’s what’s supposed to happen next.
I didn’t want to be reassured by sunlight or solid ground. I simply wanted to stand, fully present, acknowledging this beautiful darkness without wishing anything away, without projecting a storyline or prescribing the idea that fulfillment only comes when what’s before me is bright and upright and done.
Perhaps there’s no poetry after all. Perhaps the perceived grip of these leaves holding itself tightly until it’s the right time are the words I needed to feel it was okay to feel that way. Preserving this flower, this Helianthus annuus, this common sunflower in such an uncommon way, knowing that at least by this image, it will never need to be anything than what it is in this moment, in that moment, is enough.
You are enough. Just as you are.