Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 11 Number 2, August 2010
___________________________________________________________________
JUNE 21, 2010
the beeches and the oaks are dense with leafage
they have made use of the rains and the undergrowth threatens
to run riot along the manicured grounds of Frederiksborg Castle
while the gravel paths are drying out in the timely sunshine
on this astronomically the longest day of the year, though midsummer
must wait another two days for its bonfires and song and witches
it is the eighty-first time in my mother's life the sun and our planet meet
at this angle but far from the eighty-first time the event is met
by warm weather (this is Denmark) though her hands felt a little cold
to the touch asleep in the hospital bed, her forehead too when I kissed it
inside her an incurable growth has taken over and her time is approaching
midsummers will keep returning and so will she - as we all must