The Sunflower And The Sky

The Sunflower and the Sky.

A sunflower, late in its life, just as the chilling tendrils of frost began to coil around its body, shook in the wind and let loose its petals -- tears of sorrow, but also of gratitude to the sky, to whom the flower credited its life.

"Oh sky!" exhorted the sunflower, "Long before my seed sprouted did your magisterial dramas unfold across the infinity of your stage, and long after my shoots atrophy to dust will you continue. Your shining rays gave me life, your sapid rains nourished my bloom, and I followed in deepest admiration your glowing heart each and every day, from the moment my shoots breached the earth. Oh sky! I am nothing compared to you."

"My my, such a speech," replied a bemused sky," but you give yourself too little credit. I merely glow, as I always have; and I merely rain down, as I always have. It is no trick for fire to blaze, nor for water to fall. You, on the other hand, were the one who grew from the smallest homely seed into a dazzling disk of gold, aspiring ever higher."

"But!" insisted the sunflower "I would not be possible without you to reach towards."

"That may be," rejoined the sky," but you'll notice that all the rocks around you received from me the same gifts of light and rain, and not one of them budged even so much as an inch."