Off The Page~ a multimedia exploration of painting, poetry, storytelling and music
A Row of Sunflowers in Late October
by Tim Joyce
Against the cold duck evening trees
in camouflage of pale leaves, scarlet flutter, bittersweet
parched they stand, vanquished in a ghostly platoon
as if in dumb allegiance to a lost order barked
in the bush of a sweltering jungle or the desert of a far off land
How recently they were golden-faced and young
now with heads lowered, slung toward the autumnal ground
whacked out and wasted, hollowed at the core
their green hearts, their butter-yellow tongues
their broken backs tell a sky in silence they are already gone
No memorials for this lot: nothing to do but wait
for further orders that will never come
they indicate the classical pose to go down dying
their bowed, ruined grandeur awaits the axe of frost
O yes, their dry leaves sigh, find grace too in what you’ve lost
Tim Joyce. Stone Mad, Poems by Tim Joyce, Murphy’s Law Press, Lee, MA, 2009. p 36