Summer Solstice – 2019

Or, creeping toward summer…

A good & proper argument can be made that the moment marked in tomorrow’s sky signifies for northern climes a turning back toward winter, rather than the beginning of summer.

After all, from that moment light grows shorter by the day.

Regardless. This May saw more and steadier rain ‘round these parts than any May ever and was followed by a chill, dank June that most often felt like April. Tonight I dance with the pagans.

Lupine have come and gone.

The Veronica’s off to a good start.

But there’s nothing to readily sustain the bees except spiderwort…

And far too little anywhere for butterflies, who warm themselves on barren ground during rare sunny days.

Maybe if tomorrow we shake the earth, the clenched fist of the black-eyed Susan will finally open for business.

Or the Echinacea will reveal its typically hard heart bristling with life-giving pollen, rather than burbling along beneath the resolute grey like some kind of raspberry tart.

For certain, as spare as it’s turned out to be in the end, this spring’s not been without its rewards. A lot of people like green.

Even though you do have to peer mighty hard through it, to see the wealth it hides.

Meanwhile, fireflies have hatched but are yet to shine and the north wind still blows. 

Speaking for them, for bees, butterflies and northern hemisphere pagans everywhere, at this point I’ll gladly tolerate the daily shrinking of the light in exchange for life doused in warmth and riotous color, however inevitably that fails.