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 the 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 the 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 garment of leaves,

    the coarse roots in the earth

      so uprightly burning.

 

Mary Oliver (1935-2019), Dream Work, 1986.