Solstice

I have been writing poems about winter and cold and ice and snow for so long, I began wondering if I can still write about summer, sun, and warmth.

It has been difficult to shift my frame of reference from the long cold nights of winter to the long-lived light of our summer twilight hours. Perhaps it is because, somewhere along the way, I missed spring. I hardly noticed the passing of the Summer Solstice, I was so busy outdoors enjoying the warmth of the summer sun - finally arrived on the shores of our northern isle.

Mick


Solstice

I don't remember a summer this cold,
When afternoon sunshine still left a chill -
That penetrates bones, gone a little old
To deal with the cold by shear force of will.
Even the Keweenaw shivers at night,
Although the summer's short reign has begun.
For it remembers the blanket of white,
Which hid it from winter's unhelpful sun.
Yet, Heaven's heat-lamp will warm the green coast,
Touching the waters and baking the land;
Pleasing sun worshipers, who want to roast
Their flesh on beds of Superior sand -
Serenely spending, in langorous way,
The promise of this summer's longest day.

Mick McKellar
June 2008