A few lovely summer poems
Mary Oliver, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, and a wee spoken Keats quote from me. Happy Summer Solstice!
This Thursday is the summer solstice. The days are at their longest and while here in SoCal we still have June Gloom (a thick cloudy marine layer that camps out over beach cities every May/June), I see the light at the end of our foggy tunnel. There have been a couple barely just there visible sunsets and the clouds are breaking longer and longer each afternoon.
I see my beach days on the horizon. So in honor of the solstice and the coming sun, here are a few lovely summer poems that capture this time of year so perfectly.
Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer by Mary Oliver
I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woods
and spent all summer forgetting what I had been taught
two times two and diligence and so forth
how to be modest and useful and how to succeed and so forth
machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth
by fall I had healed somewhat but was summoned back
to the chalky rooms and the desks to sit and remember
the way the river kept rolling its pebbles
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light
On the Grasshopper and Cricket by John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
Speaking of John Keats- For a few summers on instagram I had a series titled
Dear August. They were little short films (before reels came about) that I posted every day in August about anything from summer itself, life, recipes, books, picnics, stars, sunsets, etc.. like tiny (1 minute or less) contemplative vlogs. They’ve since been archived but I thought I could post a few here this coming August. Would you be interested? They’d likely be from the archives but toward the end of August I may be able to make a couple new ones!
So here’s a quick little one with a favorite quote I memorized from John Keats.
This poem by Emily reminds me of Keats butterfly reference-
Untitled by Emily Dickinson (CII in the collected poems book)
Could I but ride indefinite,
As doth the meadow-bee,
And visit only where I liked,
And no man visit me,
And flirt all day with buttercups,
And marry whom I may,
And dwell a little everywhere,
Or better, run away
With no police to follow,
Or chase me if I do,
Till I should jump peninsulas
To get away from you, —
I said, but just to be a bee
Upon a raft of air,
And Row in nowhere all day long,
And anchor off the bar, —
What liberty! So captives deem
Who tight in dungeons are.
While Keats wants to drift through the air with his beloved Fanny, Emily dreams of buzzing away from suitors. Love it.
“.. to be a bee upon a raft of air, and row in nowhere all day long”.
So good.
It really is a shame that so many amazing artists and writers never got to see how popular their creations became and how many years after their deaths they’re still admired and read and viewed and appreciated. Sigh.
There are so many great summer poems out there and I will definitely have more to come. Do you have any favorites?
“Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;
and the landscape lay as if new created in all the freshness
of childhood.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Happy Summer Solstice!
x,
Courtney