Solstice Slowdown

Summer is here, a long-awaited season,
and with it I have good reason to slow down.
Because life’s rich pageant has often taught me
doing things too hastily invites danger,
like bumping an elbow on the closet door,
or stubbing a toe heading for the kitchen.

I bid spring adieu—she produced ample rain,
taxing my patience, holding blue skies hostage.
Yet now with the welcomed summer solstice here,
comforting as a warm hand on a stiff neck,
I know my patience can withstand such levy.
Like walking slow in the swampy lawns this spring,
life’s direction ought now obey care afoot.

Fast is a rooster scratching and pecking seeds,
or a greyhound racing, or a lightning bolt.
But it can also be fumbling fingers,
omitting an egg from the mix, or sewing
thread the size of jump rope when button rushing.
And courtesies lost, on the fast-track express.

Seasons change—sometimes they bring introspection.
Slow allows footsteps over roots and cobblestones;
fast grins like a monkey and injures ankles.
In this glad transition from spring to summer,
in this Earthly metamorphosis I sing—
like Whitman did, long ago, in Leaves of Grass—
to change, promoting careful steps and slow turns.


26 Lines
Writer’s Cramp Co-Winner
6-22-19