I take regular walks with my children through the alleys of my neighborhood, and the other day I noticed the abundance of dead sunflowers lining the backyards. I was struck by the beauty in the gnarled stems and dried leaves— their beautiful decay. Autumn has long been a time that I shift my focus toward more somber themes, likely due to the colder days and longer nights. That said, this season of harvest and death is as beautiful and important to me as a season of birth and growth. It completes the picture. Death is not opposite of life, it’s inextricably linked to it. One can’t exist without the other. These dead sunflowers are a perfect metaphor for this. I find as much beauty in these remnants as I do in yellow sunflowers that are in the peak of their vibrance. One could even argue that sunflowers have a greater worth in their death than in their life, given that their seeds can be harvested for food (one of my favorite snacks). So here are a few of my attempts at capturing the beauty of this specimen.
