Happy Solstice / Summer Poetry

[radiantfracture]

The weather busted out the sun for the solstice after all, past a week of June dreary. There he is, warming the air, acting like an expected guest instead of a surprise visitor.

It's a bit silly to do this every year, since the numbers are always going to be the same -– but then again, the length of the longest (or shortest) day does vary a tiny amount depending on the wobble of the Earth, and there's something charming in that.

Here's this year's wobble:

Sunrise today: 5:11 am
Sunset today: 9:18 pm
Daylight: 16 hours, 7 minutes
Civil twilight: 1 hour, 24 minutes
Nautical Twilight: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Astronomical twilight: 3 hours 51 minutes
True night: 40 minutes

How about you?

* * * * * *

And some summer poems. I have not quite found the poem I want for this summer, but these are a good start.

Mary Oliver will have to forgive me the arrangement on the page, which is approximate at best.


Midsummer, Tobago
Derek Walcott

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.



Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
Mary Oliver

Every summer

I listen and look

under the sun's brass and even

into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --

not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,

nor the leaves

deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,

nor the shucks, nor the cobs.

And still,

every day,

the leafy fields

grow taller and thicker --

green gowns lofting up in the night,

showered with silk.
 

And so, every summer,

I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --

I am deaf too

to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --

all of it

happening

beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.

Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.

Let the wind turn in the trees,

and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.

How could I look at anything in this world

and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?

What should I fear?

One morning

in the leafy green ocean

the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body

is sure to be there.

* * * * * *

[ETA]

Walcott's assonance in those last lines -- matching lost and daughters, harbouring and arms. And care as harbour in an island poem.

I do not share Mary Oliver's trust in the ripening of things, what with Monsanto, et al., but I liked this stanza very much:

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.

Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.

Let the wind turn in the trees,

and the mystery hidden in the dirt

Comments

[larryhammer]

Here at latitude 32.23° N, we're getting 14:16 of daylight, 3:21 of twilights (including what looks likely to be a pretty good sunset given the partial cloudiness), and 6:23 of solid night.

That is a particularly good stanza.

[sabotabby]

These are very excellent. Happy Solstice!

[davidgillon]

The figures for London should be close enough for me:

Astronomical twilight begins 01:00:01
Nautical twilight begins 02:40:58
Dawn - civil twilight begins 03:55:35
Sunrise: 04:41:06
Sunset: 21:23:51
Dusk - civil twilight ends 22:09:22
Nautical twilight ends 23:23:59
Astronomical twilight ends 01:00:01

So no true night at the moment.

[armiphlage]

https://xkcd.com/2792/