The Sunflowers
by Mary Oliver

Come with me
   into the field of sunflowers.
       Their faces are burnished disks
            their dry spines

creak like ship masts,
   their green leaves,
       so heavy and many,
            fill all day with the sticky

sugars of the sun.
   Come with me
     to visit the sunflowers,
          they are shy

but want to be friends;
   they have wonderful stories
     of when they were young --
          the important weather,

the wandering crows.
   Don't be afraid
     to ask them questions!
          Their bright faces,

which follow the sun,
   will listen, and all
      those rows of seeds --
          each one a new life! --

hope for a deeper acquaintance;
   each of them, though it stands
      in a crowd of many,
         like a separate universe,

is lonely, the long work
   of turning their lives
       into a celebration
          is not easy.  Come

and let us talk with those modest faces,
   the simple garments of leaves,
      the coarse roots in the earth
          so uprightly burning.