Dishing Up Summer
ode to the Summer Solstice & first day of Summer
It arrives on a warm white cloud.
It arrives on soft rolls
of ocean waves
along a sand pebbled shore.
It arrives on a bed
of blooming dune roses.
It comes to your senses.
It comes to your plate.
It comes to your pitcher
of memories, reveries.
It whets the appetite
of children and fishermen,
beachgoers and beachcombers,
sunbathers and swimmers,
sailors, gardeners, barbecuers
and straw-hatted farmers.
It comes one day.
Just like that.
And keeps coming.
To the table of your days,
your nights,
sunrise to sunset;
even when you’re sleeping,
dreaming.
Sometimes spiced
with the salt-air
of the sea,
or the resin
of a coastal or
mountain forest.
Sometimes soaked
in the delicious heat
of a sultry sun
or the succulent coolness
of a heat-breaking rain.
Sometimes lit
by flashes of lightning,
or lightning bugs.
Every part of it
a feast, of servings,
for savoring
Beginning today.
With the first
and longest light
and taste
of all the welcome light
and tastes
of the Summer days
yet to come.
Colin Goedecke
on the Summer Solstice
Westerly-by-the-Sea Rhode Island
21 June 2023
