Summer Solstice Readings

The longest day, the summer solstice, takes place in late mid June in the northern hemisphere where I reside (June 20 in 2024). I remember as a child thinking how strange it was that people in the southern hemisphere had summer when I had winter and vice versa, which Ellen Dudley touches on in her work below. 

Poets have celebrated the way the darkness and light sit perfectly balanced, in equipoise, and the lushness of the summer season's heart. I share a couple of lines here; follow the links to read the whole work.

The image above is of Bryn Celli Ddu, a chambered Neolithic tomb constructed around 3000 BCE in alignment with the rising sun on the summer solstice. I share it in honor of my Welsh ancestry on my maternal grandfather's side.

"Summer Solstice, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka" by Marilyn Krysl

Surf sounds like erasure, over and over.
I lay down and let go, the way you trust an animal.

"Summer Solstice 2006" by Jim Brown

The earth, the sun, in far off temporal frames
we cannot imagine,

"Rose Garden, Summer Solstice" by Carolyn Miller

Everyone here believes that the roses

are blooming only for them,

"Solstice" by Ellen Dudley

On the first full day of summer the sun is up

the sky as far as it will get and now it will

head south to warm the Antipodes, where today

it rains and  gales blow up from the Antarctic.

"Summer Solstice" by Rose Styron

Suddenly,

there’s nothing to do

and too much—

the lawn, paths, woods

were never so green

white blossoms of every

size and shape—hydrangea,

Chinese dogwood, mock orange

spill their glistening—

"Solstice" by Tess Taylor

How again today our patron star

whose ancient vista is the long view

turns its wide brightness now and here:

Below, we loll outdoors, sing & make fire.

"Solstice Litany" by Jim Harrison

Solstice at the cabin deep in the forest.

The full moon shines in the river, there are pale

green northern lights. A huge thunderstorm

comes slowly from the west. Lightning strikes

a nearby tamarack bursting into flame.

"Summer Solstice" by Ellen Bass (entire poem here)

If you stand at the edge
of the sunrise and shout
with a full-hearted pleasure,
hurling out cries of delight,

over and over, your joy,

like stones from a ledge,

will cause circles to widen out, reach

the horizon, light the morning.

For some readings at the other end of the year, visit my 2023 winter solstice collection of readings and my 2022 winter solstice collection.