The Sunflowers

Words by Steff Treviño

My mother loves sunflowers. 

And during our one-year stint in West Texas, she planted a bunch in the back corner of our yard. 

We lived in a lonely neighborhood on the edge of town and I think my mother wanted a bit of color. 

The sun doesn’t shine yellow in the Texas desert. 

Instead, it burns white and wide.

All-encompassing and unforgiving. 

But my mother needed color. 

She needed life and the simple shades of growth. 

A sign that time was indeed passing–

that, yes, today is different from yesterday and, yes, tomorrow it will change again. 

So she scattered some seeds in the back corner of our barren yard, the far left, next to the fence.

And I don't think she expected them to grow like they did. 

I don't think she ever watered them. 

And I’m trying to find the irony in these flowers, 

taking to the dirt and the burn of the sun in ways my mother and I never could–

but all I can come up with is the feeling of an axe in my hands

and the sun on the back of my neck as I cut away the things my mother and I could never do.