The Fairies Themselves Now Dance Sweet Summer In - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Fairies Themselves Now Dance Sweet Summer In

 

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird

 

-Mary Oliver, “Messenger”

 

Everything is sacramental this week:

 

The Strawberry Moon in the fullness of being

Midsummer magic by day and by night

The English quarter day, the Feast of St. John

And holy bonfires in honor of light

 

Good honeybees take Communion at every flower

Soft breezes sing hymns among the ripening corn

The woods and fields are baptized in happiness

The sun and moon bless maidens and swains

 

We need no clocks or calendars to tell us when –

The fairies themselves now dance sweet summer in

Summer Solstice - Did the Earth Move for You Too? - a wheeze

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Summer Solstice - Did the Earth Move for You Too?

The almanac says that the Solstice came
Shortly after the receptionist called my name
At 1056 – and how do they know
Of stars and planets in their dances slow?

We note the transcendent reality
Of our pale transient mortality
And guard our health with good ol’ common sense
I later noted this coincidence:

The transition to summer came to pass
While the doctor had his finger up my ***


(There might be some mystical symbolism in that, but I don’t know what.)

The Summer Solstice as Not Celebrated in Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Summer Solstice as Not Celebrated in Texas

One might as well call this an equinox
For night and day are equinoxious now:
Mosquitoes, soul-withering heat and damp
Itch-allergens and rattlesnakes not featured

In advertising fantasies about
Bugless, unbitten happy families
Posing with plates and carnivorous smiles
Before neighbor-envious chromium grills

And playing free of heat rash and pustules
Around surgically sterile swimming pools

Arc of the Solstice - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Arc of the Solstice

High summer’s solstice is the year’s proud crown:
The sun has reached his apogee, and now
Will linger through July’s life-ripening days
Then drift into a worn Augustan gold

September is a sort of seasonal coup
Who in the equinoctial treaty signs
For a slow dissolution of the sun
And all his ancient power to rule and reign

In his old age the sun is seldom seen –
Diana, then, is crowned as winter’s queen