A Gift of Sunflowers

by Catherine Coundjeris

I always loved sunflowers.
The way their heads nod in the darkness
and rise again towards the sun,
following the golden light through the day.
They are the strongest flower and stand
like warrior angels in their fields of glory.

When I was six my father promised to pick
me a sunflower after church one Sunday morning.
I could think of nothing else through all the chants
as sunlight poured through stained glass windows.
Dad struggled to cut the resilient stalk.
I waited and waited to hold my gift.

Their seeds of variegated color small and nutty are
easy to chew and it is satisfying to break open their shells.
A handful in the pocket a good companion for a long walk
on a summer’s day. The birds love them too.
Birds and squirrels fighting for their share at the feeder
under the oak trees in the woods behind our rancher.

Little did I dream that they were an emblem of freedom
against the rage of Putin and his unholy puissance.
Even some Russian soldiers don’t want to fight.
No one really knows why as we advance in arts and science,
we again become bogged down by the brutality of war.
When will we rise up free and whole to follow the sun?

Haunted

Troubled by faces on the news.
A mother with three children.
Her hair shorn close to her head.
Asking for a no-fly zone.
Her daughter angry and tortured
Grimacing at the camera.

A president pleading for NATO
To join them to defend them
Against a madman.
Send more missiles;
We need more fighter jets.
Defend democracy before it’s too late.

Women and children
And old people climbing fallen trees
To escape the bombing.
Leaving their homes and
Everything behind them.
Dogs and cats and pets in tow.

A child with a pink backpack
Her prized possession on the road
Leaving on foot.
Soldiers with sunflowers
Tucked In their hair
The sick and newborn in bunkers.

Hairdressers, barbers, dentists, butchers,
taking up the gold and blue colors,
learning to use semi-automatic rifles,
refusing to surrender;
ready to fight to the end.
All seared into my mind’s eye
While World War III lurks behind the smoke and fire.

The Years of Peace

Peter Ostroushko’s
“Heart of the Heartland’
Mandolin solo brought me to tears
this morning because it sounded
just like my dad’s mandolin.
The tears came and then I remembered
A feeling I had not felt in a long time.
Out of the blue I was young again.
The sweet voice of the mandolin,
soothing away the Covid years
and violent world
and recalling the years of peace.

Threat of Closure

Response to Dorothy Tse’s Cloth Birds

From Poetry.org

This was written long before the pandemic and the resulting closures and speaks of a different kind of lock down.

I sing, a song of sadness
for the passing of a nation.
For the Yen Chow Street Hawker Bazaar
under threat of closure from the government.
I wonder at the poet’s safety, too.
It is only a matter of time when
all artists and artisans are under
threat of closure from the government.
I fear for them and wonder at the power of a poem.
Can one poem cry out to another
like a trumpet, calling out into the maelstrom.
Who will light the beacons before it’s too late?
Before its flame is under threat from the government.
Alleviate the suffering of a people suffocating
from the dying of art and liberty?
I hear their rally call, and I can only
write a poem in reply.
Who else is listening?
If the free world refuses to respond,
then it will it be our turn
To be under threat of closure from the government…
To watch our way of life fail.

Catherine’s poetry is published in literary magazines, including, Paper Dragons, Kaleidoscope, Jalmurra, Calla Press, Cholla Needles, Last Leaves, Bewildering Stories, The Raven Review, Open Door Magazine, Stone Hill Journal, Honeyguide, Loud Coffee Press, and Moss Puppy Magazine. She also has stories published in Proem, Quail Bell, and KeepThings on instagram. She has recently published an essay in an anthology from Luna Press called, Not the Fellowship Dragon’s Welcome. Catherine is very passionate about adult literacy.