Summer Solstice 21

 

Summer Solstice ‘21

as June moves toward and through the Summer Solstice,

the heat and humidity of full summer

increasingly rule the day,

cool dry air times a visit

so that we could hike up a mountain with its help,

back down summer resettles over us,

the forest is luxuriantly full,

the air clear enough to magic the light

and the world around us,

galax, 

blue-bead lily, 

bee balm, 

and sand myrtle, 

flower, as do rosebay and catawba rhododendron,

some laurel still hang in,

summer comes in on a Sunday this year,

and the black bears in our valley in the Smokies

seem to have a coming-out party this day:

a beautiful yearling walks by the cabin, 

then up the trail,

then along the stream,

briefly pausing in the cooling water,

a huge adult bear, maybe 30 minutes later,

also goes up the dropping creek,

pausing even longer when in the water,

a cub from this year, alone,

with a red tag in its ear,

hangs out in the nearby picnic area mid-afternoon,

and then slips away back into the woods,

the next day up here quiets,

our family gone back to their usual lives,

nearby rentals turn over,

no bears or herons appear again 

through the morning and into the afternoon,

the air expects rain to visit overnight, and it does,

we slipped up here to the mountains earlier than usual,

so that we could come together

for a hike up the mountain when opportunity allowed,

in that hazy time when school ends,

and we are almost ready for vacation. . .

surprise!  just as I write these words,

the huge bear ambles up from the creek,

embraces the spruce tree to scratch itself,

then moves to the cedar tree to embrace it, too,

scratching front then scratching its back,

    

I follow it for 20 minutes as it checks out the nearby neighborhood,

no one else out besides her and me,

one half-hearted “woof” when it tired of the paparazzi in me,

I lost it in the border world where yards and woods meet each other,

where, like Alice found, one world can slip into another,

the year is of borders now,

the growing season is full,

and the days know light slowly ebbs toward fall,

and winter will come.

by Henry H. Walker

June 21, ‘21