The sun is bright–
the weather warm. . .
Day long,
short night
Trees fruit,
wide rivers
settle into currents,
upon which boats, and people flow
on water fed, perhaps, with melt of winter’s plenteous snow,
and throw dares
come down from sky
back to our eyes
to see if we will stay afloat
in face of glares bloomed fiercely bright,
But each minute,
here in our earth’s north half
ticks us toward the solstice high,
which soon will steer us ’round the other way,
as the star-savvy people know,
to move toward the mode
where our earth’s south-half neighbors
live right now,
slinking toward the dead of winter,
having left behind
the sting of bee, the flit of butterfly
the prancing ants,
the acts of aid to child or self,
to pull out insult got by wood
at play or work,
the summer’s “Ouch!”-producing splinter.
Globe’s bottom half,
in not too long, will know
what we’ve but fairly newly left–
the world of rain and wet,
of biting ice and wind and cold,
of dark, short days,
and long deep nights,
so fit for spirit, thought,
respite, pause to be with
self,
and others,
gathered,
young and old,
and learn in profound still and quiet,
what joys and sorrows
lurk in us,
and the world, indoors and out–
around our fires,
or
beneath dark, bright-starlit skies,
or waking, eager,
to the day
to be the first
to make the puddles splash,
stem any flood,
or sink the edge of shovel’s blade
or our boot’s sole
to cut a path
and leave our mark
right in the snow.
