The sunflowers at Pope Farm Conservancy are nodding off.  Some of them have done what they came here to do, with seeds forming in the wake of bees and other pollinators.  Many are withering still in bud – stuck in mid-sentence, the thought of liberating tightly curled petals somehow lost or forgotten.  “It’s called farming,”  Mr. Pope explained on the early morning news segment featuring the sunflowers.  Sunflowers are not a sure thing.

As we walked around the ragged field of golden survivors, we were accompanied by a performance of bird and insect chirps, the singers perched in clouds of rudbeckia and bee balm, and of course, Queen Ann’s Lace.  You don’t always get what you came for, but that doesn’t mean nothing is there.  You could just wait and see.   Maybe the songbird who overlooks the field from his twiggy, weedy perch sings again, in syllables pure and clear, cutting the air into someplace eternal and new.