4 December 2022 – Well… there is sun. Today, yes there is.

But, flower?

I balance on the ice-slick Scotia St. sidewalk, and anthropomorphize like mad.

Two stalks. Remnants of the rampant bright leaves and companion seed head of a big old summer sunflower — not in anybody’s garden, but right here at sidewalk’s edge.

Oh good grief, look at it now.

“I am a sunflower,” I hear it growl. “It is now winter.”

“Barely any sun. What do you expect?”

I salute its defiant, bedraggled survivor-splendour, and walk on.