of darkness and sunlight in shifting proportion

by bam

night was on my mind this week, as the sunlight upon us stretched to its longest shift of the year, the apex of the solstice on thursday, and now the night grows longer minute by minute till winter’s solstice takes its turn, a doh-si-doh of celestial bodies. the interplay of light and shadow is eternal, has been, according to genesis, since the beginning, day one. and it was good. 

it might seem counterintuitive to contemplate night when the day is at its longest, but it’s often through the paradoxical that insights are gleaned. a wise and soulful priest pointed me toward considering the illuminations that come in darkness, at a saturday morning retreat in the great gothic-revival church that so often stirs me these days. 

and then through the week, i kept stumbling on poems that made me marvel, made me think deep and deeper of the hours of darkness. here are two: 

The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass.

––Night in Day by Joseph Stroud

Night Ferry
by John Burnside

Had I been less prepared, I would have left
in springtime, when the plum tree in the yard
was still in bloom,
the windows open after months of snow,
one magpie in the road
and then another.

I could have slipped away, late afternoon,
while everyone was busy somewhere else,
the fish van at the corner, children
dawdling home from school
in twos and threes, a porch light
lit against the dusk on Tollbooth Wynd.

Give me these years again and I will
spend them wisely.
Done with the compass; done, now, with the chart.
The ferry at the dock, lit
stern to prow,
the next life like a footfall in my heart.

it’s the last stanza of burnside’s that spoke to me most profoundly. “give me these years again and I will / spend them wisely.”

and then, with celestial bodies on my mind, i stumbled onto john burroughs, the naturalist whose wisdoms and poetries never fail to stir me. 

“If I had my life to live over again, and had my choice of celestial bodies, I am sure I should take this planet, and iI should choose these men and women for my friends and companions. This great rolling sphere with its sky, its stars, its sunrises and sunsets, and with its outlook into infinity — what could be more desirable? What more satisfying? Garlanded by the seasons, embosomed in sidereal influences, thrilling with continents — one might ransack the heavens in vain for a better or more picturesque abode.” — John Burroughs 

but mostly this week i indulged in the sunlight of one of the oldest, dearest friends i have on this planet: my roommate in college, my roommate after college, my maid of honor, godmother to my firstborn, and my heartmate and soulmate through life’s most scouring hours. she’s a california girl, blond still (naturally so), and more beautiful than ever, and she married a man who might be the twin separated at birth from the one i married. not only do they both wear the exact same spectacles, they both dress in old-line khakis and oxford-cloth shirts, and think deeply about the subjects they love (film for the one from LA; bricks, mortar, and marble for the one i married) as well as the ideas that animate the life of the mind. we played, the four of us, at being playful: took long walks through woodsy ravines, gobbled ice cream from cones, motored downtown to see georgia o’keeffe at the art institute, and before we got there stumbled into one of the world’s great symphony orchestras rehearsing schumann’s piano concerto in frank gehry’s bandshell with someone billed as one of the world’s greatest pianist. all for free. and all in the sunlight.

and tomorrow, my firstborn marks another spin around the sun at the center of it all. there are not enough blessings under that sun for me to wish and hope and pray for my boy, but i wish every last one for him and his heart and his soul and his dreams. happy blessed life, you who made me a mama.

how did you mark the solstice, the day when the sunlight shines longest?