Bart Wilcox
The Sunflower and the Cardinal
2024, Acrylic on canvas, 20″ x 16″

Come out with me
to see how fall kills
with the pageantry of
sacrifice, not so like the
winter insinuating till
the old forget they’re old.
In my constitutional
there are no politics
but the atheism of the sun,
the communism of the
groundflower,
the anarchy of fair air.
Another season of
sunflowers has come and gone
without my shears or
paltry camera.
They’re well past
Van Gogh to Kiefer
to half-life between
lead pages.
The cardinal comes from
somewhere, boils in the eye
and, hidden in the sumac,
keeps for himself
one kernel of liberty.