Summer Solstice 24

 Summer Solstice ’24

heat lies heavy over the eastern U.S.,
it’s been dry for weeks in piedmont North Carolina,
my final full school year is over,
and my retirement from teaching has been announced and honored,
a fitting climax last 
Saturday
of honoring the students
and people acknowledging my efforts
and more successes than the imposter in me
feels ready to claim,
in the night I can feel lost
without the driving calling which has dominated my days,

on the way to the Smokies we stop and visit a bit,
dropping off two containers of fabulous summer transparency applesauce
for a friend and former colleague who is slipping away,
the applesauce the only thing he can eat now,
we hear of his savoring spoonful after spoonful for supper,

we stop in Asheville at the farmer’s market 

and buy two bushels of summer transparency apples
with which we will intensively labor for a few days
so that the full-sunned truth of high summer
that is caught and held in these tart manifestations
of the best flavor spring can create,
heavily tamed with added sugar,

late afternoon as the cabin
green leaves hug the sun and swaddle me under them,
the sweat on my face acknowledges the heat,
the sun sinks to the west,
and the creek lightly chuckles
as if it’s laughing at a joke that only sort of works,

I get a call from the Tennessee wildlife folks
about the black bear that pushed its way in to the cabin yesterday,
it will need to be trapped and removed,

the rosebay rhododendron are blooming
with the grace only they know, and
the bee balm share their brash red assertiveness,

 it’s the denouement of my career
and the denouement of the year for the next six months.

the last full light of this late June day
quietly asserts that light is at its zenith,
that the fullness of the day should be celebrated,
loss and darkness will all too soon have their time,


by Henry Walker
6/20/24