germinating

Today the sunflower seeds have split.
They sit like toques on tall green crowns,
leaves not yet spread
but muscled up from the soil
after the kiss of drenched earth
swelled them to bursting,
sent them twisting upward
toward the slow fire of sunlight.
Now their subterranean selves
are held in midair,
incontrovertible evidence that buried potential
may emerge into the light.

My son, fourteen, has sowed plenty of other seeds,
but is still stirred to see so plainly
the black-and-white striped husks
perched atop the sprung green.

Now the cells of these new sprouts
should keep splitting until they, too,
bear golden crowns surrounding
the next generation of smooth striped packets of hope
ready to be pushed into the waiting earth,
ready to split and rocket into light after only
a week’s worth of sunrises and sets.

My son sits paused at the end of boyhood
waiting for the silent prompt that sends
his own cells doubling, his blonde crown
also stretching to sun. He waits, and takes on faith
that like the simple black seeds,
his body houses the knowledge needed
to transform and grow,
to shed one phase for the next,
to thrive in the light.