Solstice

Summer came in
From the islands.

After rain or storm
A cold wind blew
From the south.

The bay was full
Of white horses,
Squall spittle, spume
Riding the wave tops.

Cloud and weather
Pulled the sky lower;
A half moon skulked
Through it.

At midnight, dusk,
As if the hours’
Slow minutes
And their seconds
Slid through this place:
Unrepeatable time,
Gone.

Rain pencilled
The birch-woods
Sketched the pine-tree forests
Till, cross-hatched by mist
There was no horizon
To the hills.

Grass stayed green,
Alive, still growing
Under the day’s feet
But the season was
Already unwound.

The longest day
Rose out of the sea
With the sun, too soon
For it’s own good.

Approaching weather
Cleared from the west.

We crossed a bridge then,
There, where dimness fell,
Day into night, like rain.

We stepped across
The summit of the year
Went skidding like children
Downslope to a darkness
We did not remember.

© BH, 2018

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The day after the longest, I begun this in full sun. I couldn’t believe the threshold had been crossed. So soon after storm Hector’s southerly blow and the westerlies that followed. White horses in the bay. Several days of reading books and watching boats in the squalls.

Ah, but the seasons turn. We get the weather we deserve.