Rebecca Hill

Blue Skies

Rebecca Hill

Once when the blue sky met the horizon Rows and rows of sunflowers Danced in the sunlight Of the blue sky. Then came the dust, The rumble of tanks, The whiz of bullets Against the brightly hewn fields Grazing the petals of the sunflowers, Knocking some of their heads from their stems And a grimy darkness Settled on the remaining petals One by one, That grimy darkness eradicated them As they hung their pregnant starlike heads Closer and closer to the poisonous ground The scorched earth cried in pain As their heads drooped Closer and closer, A comfort to the earth’s pain Laying seeds of renewal in hope That the blue sky Would once again Meet their upturned faces.

Rebecca Hill lives in Bloomington, Indiana. She has been published twice in Flying Island Journal, and in the Midwest Poetry Review.