The Sunflowers Sing To Me

She sang a song
of life and living,
of love and loving,
of strife and striving,
of victory and conquering.

She sang of the sweetness
of her flesh,
of her soul,
with the abandon that comes
with surrendering both to the flames.

Her song woke in me
a longing,
an aching,
a yearning,
that I had thought forgotten.

Margaret,
ancestor,
mother,
freed slave,
knowing woman.

Sing again over me.
That these dead bones walking,
may remember from where they are descended from.

Each bloom of your favorite flower reminds me,
though you are long dead,
your blood still lives,
in me.

And like your flower,
despised as a weed,
by those that would conquer still,
I will bloom in adversity.
I will thrive in desertion.
I will spring up no matter how I am cut down.
Until the flames of my petals,
causes the sun to hide in shame.