Summer solstice

Let this day, beginning in grey light
lapping at your skin, move as if
a loved one, navigating out of darkness
for awhile, blinking and thirsty, wanting to live
one more turn of the earth, but only
if you are in that turning, too.

How will you hold what cannot be contained
in a simple body?

Light, like water, pours through your fingers.
Love, like sun, burns as much as heals.

You are bread. You are an ember’s
orange bead. Your job is not to grip this long
day of light, knowing tomorrow
will only mean less. No, what light seeps
through the flannel sky or later flames
blue, reaches for you.

The little caves of your eyes,
the red canals of your bones,
your hair pulled into the wind,
all know this.

Listen, sit here or look up from
whatever chore has stolen your attention.
Turn toward this light, which could be
sun or silvery cloud or soul-lit face,
so you can be found.