Desperately Seeking Sunflowers

We went in search of sunflowers today. There is rumored a field full of sunflowers, stretching across a valley near the Missouri River. We saw them. But they were held too far off for us to touch them and flop down and play in them. The stood there, waving, I imagine, at those of us bound by gates and silly orange signs.

Nevermind those silly sunflowers.

Today we found the mud. The streaked and dried, river just receded, still dripping just below surface, riverbank mud. We wallowed. Well, they wallowed. Each making a mark in the sand before sending sticks to challenge river's edge currents. We watched as wood of different sizes and shapes fared so oddly in the currents and whirlpools of the Missouri River.

I can see the moon from bed tonight. Only as the wind blows heavy branches aside and there it sits. And I'm thinking . . . somewhere, everywhere, the river flows in the darkness, sticks still struggling in its course. Rocks, thrown by excited little hands, heavy, still the bottom. Such insignificant changes for a mighty river, it seems.

But somehow, the grit in the bathroom sink, and the shoes not yet reclaimed signal greater change. The passing of 9 year old summer days, crawling in bed with mud still behind his ears.