(6/20/2024, the moment of the solstice)

4:35
Near the end,
past four Great Mullein plants
their seven foot erections
bowing down in the heat,
I walk to the deep shade
behind the hemp pond
to rest in the hammock 
and swing slowly between
locust and maple,
like a slow leak
the sky trickles out
and falls into my hollow nap.
I will not look at my watch,
but wait and wait,
it will happen everywhere
at once for everyone and
everything on earth,
this common moment
this pull of the thread
when we’re one

4:51
I feel it:
the end 
the beginning, that now
and again now, and now, and now
tilts the earth back,
this biannual action
ordinary as a grasshopper.
Summer can race on with its
milkweed
butterfly bush
blue chicory

5:07
I consider that this is the season
I will be seventy-six
and get up from the hammock
to exit my cool retreat. Down the hill
along the road, I hear
the mailman at the box.
The page is turned.