Spring morphs to Summer without me

 

Summer Solstice '25

for decades my consciousness has worked hard to attune itself

to the patterns of change and constancy in the natural world,

I began much of my current journey 

after being slapped awake by the Winter Solstice,

I labored hard to get a student to write about this seminal time

when Sun and Earth pause in relation to the other,

then proceed ahead to increasing light mocked by increasing cold,

my student never wrote of it all, but I did,

I talked myself into it,

I noted that this time of loss and absence was necessary,

or else the spring would have the "nothingness of an eternal flower,"

for decades each Equinox and each Solstice have focused me

on the world external to me, but also me at my deepest,

in my poetry I have felt as apprentice to the natural world,

subsuming my human-driven ego

to the will that earth, plant, and animal assert,

through the year and beyond the years,

both casual and implacable,

my individual will increasingly subservient 

to the masters within nature,

this June my back threw me down 

into a self-centered rawness,

every step to the bathroom, to the table, 

to being up and about,

consumed all my attention,

so I would lose myself in book, 

in tv shows, in computer projects,

spring morphed into summer, and I hardly noticed,

I have been too inward and lost in my self,

it is time for me to recalibrate

and refind my way outward and forward,

there is a greatness beyond our individuality

and I need to reach for it anew

and hold until my spirit is up and about.

by Henry H. Walker

June 24, '25