Where arabesques have long since fallen
Now steel and metal take their place.
Where dust and stinging wind won’t harken
To e’en the sweetest voice or face,
Where o’re the stacks of burdened sandbags
Concrete blends in with the sky,
Where barricades and wires surround
To keep out dangers drawing nigh,
Where sun is by the storm obscured
Still her earthly visage shows
Rooted in the feeble ground
Undeterred she graceful’y grows.
This poem was written in response to a photo Ellise posted which showed beautiful sunflowers blooming in the metal and concrete military base in Afghanistan. She said that the flowers kept her sane, blooming in that sandy, hot, dry place. I thought of how much we miss her, and wrote this so she would realize how much WE miss her blooming here.