Author Bret Hoveskeland

I’ve been thinking of sunflowers a lot since my dad’s passing in November 2024. He was a farmer most of his life and one of his crops of choice was sunflowers. In honor, this is one from the vault, written somewhere around 2014 or 2015.

“As Tall as Sunflowers”

In a faded Polaroid with a handwritten scrawl that reads “Summer of 1980-Something,”

there is a blurred image of a sunflower field, yellowing canary yellow like cowards,

green stalks growing stubble, five-o-clock shadow. 

A shield of trees barricades a farm in the background. 

A cloudless sky frames the top half. 

Thousands of miniature suns bud from black summer dirt.

A little boy stands beneath the suns, in knee-high ditch grass.

Too short to reach up and pull

out the suns’ seeds with sticky, candied fingers. 

Too young to taste the rewards of being fully grown. 

Next to him, all these pretty ladies stand in their cultivated rows,

heads glowing gold, auburn, and brown under the sun,

waiting for the harvest. 

Smiles fall like broken stalks to the soil at their bare feet. 

They wish for nothing more than to see their children

grow as tall as sunflowers,

but please, oh please, don’t ripen too fast. 

They want strong stalks,

no browning leaves,

no damaged seeds. 

No harmful pesticides to counter growth.

Who will he be

when tall enough to reach their heads? 

Will he still want to touch their faces, 

and consume the creation they hold,

allowing acres to go fallow or dry up in drought,

wither in reddening sun,

all for the fleeting pleasure

of holding a few seconds of their salt on his tongue?