The global Yin Yang of the seasons is a magical thing. We grow up here looking at images of Christmas from Europe and the USA - with cold and snow and short shadowy days... but here it is usually hot and bright and blue and many people head to the beach. I remember my parents explaining it to me as a child, and trying to understand. Best wishes to you for the festive season. Stay warm!
There's so much to love here. I was first struck by the note about catching a poem like catching a fish. One of my first poems I ever had published had a line I was very proud of that said "catch my gaze and pull it like a fish" about choosing a prompt for a poem. And then that glorious stanza about the surfer encased in water. And the remarkable lines about the woman who will age and "grow beautiful grooves and lines." I teared up at that. It's so true that aging is a privilege and a gift, and if more of us write about it and talk about it and live it like this, we can protect ourselves and our young ones from the poison of believing otherwise. Dave, you always give me so much to consider and feel. Thank you.
When I wrote Summer Solstice, a year ago, I was just 4 months into publishing on Substack - after taking a break from publishing that lasted over 22 years.
In those 2+ decades I had lost contact with every other Poet I had ever known, and although I had kept on writing it was at a much reduced rate of output and I had the sense that I needed to retrain my brain to do this all again.
When I wrote Summer Solstice - all in a rush while sitting at that beach - I knew I was back. There was just so much I wanted to say about the scene....
The young women and men glowing with youth and what we term beauty were indeed luminous but - yes - to age is indeed such a gift, and we should be reverent towards it. I have been one of those young men. Now I am an older man. One day I will die.
I could see it all around me - the moment of transcendence for that surfer - the day itself - the world pivoting about the hinge of the solstice - the children, the young adults and the older people they will become - the circularity of it all....
It delights me that you can see what I was seeing.
How incredible that the poem came all at once like that. Those poems are so special (and very rare for me). This poem is remarkable for many reasons.
That sense of connectedness comes through so strongly, the connectedness of people to nature and people to one another. And the line of connectedness does not exclude the young or the old. I have been thinking so much how beauty is not just for the young or the strong but for the living. All the actors in Hollywood look, frozen from all their injections, afraid to age, and that’s not a picture of life, but of stasis. There’s something very wrong about accepting this as our vision of beauty. Your poem is a powerful corrective to this kind of thinking.
We are similar in having taken such a long break from publishing and then finding Substack as an avenue to reconnecting with other writers and writing more regularly again. It is such a gift to be here and enjoy the beautiful words of our friends and offer our own.
It was a day of... what they call "flow," I think.
I did not really expect to find a poem when I wrote that I would go searching for one. I did not know it would be such an extraordinarily perfect day at the beach, when I decided to go there. I had no idea what I would write I started...
And often, crowds make me feel excluded and alone...
But everything came together and for that time I did feel deeply connected with everything and with everyone - even the young woman who probably entirely misinterpreted my gaze if she noticed it at all.
I agree with you, Abi. "...beauty is not just for the young or the strong but for the living." It is the gift we are born into - the beauty which surrounds us and of which we are intrinsically a part. Yet we narrow the definitions - or have them narrowed for us by those who simply want to sell us more of their "stuff."
I think that’s noteworthy that the writing made you feel connected to everyone on the beach. I have felt that before. The state of writing is one of attunement with the natural world, very similar to how a child attunes to a parent. I feel watchful in a restful way, alert and aware but not in a stressful way. I think this is why psychologists are beginning to recommend journaling protocols as part of therapy. I have felt how writing gives me a sense of harmony with myself and with others. Maybe because in writing we are paying attention and capturing what is happening around us in the language of words? This act of attention makes writing a loving act I think, even when we have to write about painful things. We honor those we write about simply by noticing them so carefully. It’s something to ponder for sure.
My very first poem was when I was three and it was all about “busily bee” who went up a “tree.” But I remember that I was picturing a ladybug. Ha. Rhyming bee and tree was all it took, and I was hooked for life. I gave poems as gifts from then on to my parents. :) I was much more interested in literary analysis than creative writing in college, so I never considered myself a serious poet until grad school when a professor challenged us to attend poetry readings and write and submit in a workshop-based class. I realized that there were some things I could say in poetry that I couldn’t communicate in prose. I tried to be a “serious poet” for a couple years and made a whopping $230 and had maybe 20 publications, and then I felt so swamped in the baby years that I set it aside and became a wedding and funeral poet.
In January of this year I was telling my sister-in-law that I really missed writing seriously, and she challenged me to do it again. She told me she was going to call me every week and bug me about it, so I started this Substack and committed to writing once a week. It has reinvigorated my writing life to follow so many amazing writers and get so much feedback on my own writing. It feels like a long-distance writer’s club I never knew existed! Thank you for asking such a thoughtful question, Dave, and sorry this answer got so long!
My thanks to you, my friend, for giving such a detailed and thoughtful answer....
Your reflection on writing as connection, and inclusion - and ultimately as an act of love - mirror my own feelings. I avoid crowds as much as possible, and parties and situations where I need to socialise with strangers - because the shallowness of most social interaction wearies me, and I am not confident or relaxed at doing it at all.
Yet I do feel that most people are good, at heart, even when I feel distant from them. I am far more a people watcher than a people pleaser. Writing is a way of translating what I see and hear into a form of connection which is deeply meaningful to me. It seems we have that in common.
Wonderful that you started so young! I have always loved words, but have no clear poetic creation story like your own. A first book of illustrated nursery rhymes certainly influenced me. The Owl and the Pussycat is still a treasured memory...
I wrote very bad poetry in my teens.
I was pretty good at literary analysis myself, but then it started to bore me and irritate me. It didn't help that my life was in a mess at the time, lol.
I wrote main ly in journals, for myself - apart from a few prose publications. Eventually.... in my mid 30's - I started to write poetry that I was finally happy with, as if it took 20 years to find my voice.
Like you, returning to publication via Substack has been a profoundly enjoyable and creatively rich experience...
I hope your Christmas and New Year are full of love and happiness. Best wishes to you and to your family. To everyone else in the world too...
I have been thinking about how much Substack is the right amount. LOL. I don’t want very much of my life to be spent online, so I think there’s room for caution, but I see that there’s synergy in exchanging ideas with other writers that is very valuable. There’s probably a bell curve at work here where we can gain the maximum benefit from all the feedback and encouragement without being on the app more than we really want to be.
Hey, Alex. I am just so glad you enjoyed this. It was one of miraculous days when you know what you want to write about, but not the detail, let alone the how, and then it just comes to you, a sublime gift of the sun....
I realise I’m late to this particular party but I just wanted to say what a wonderful poem this, every word travelling halfway around the world to land in front of me in a perfectly formed, high definition image. Thank you Dave, for sharing 👍
We were back in our original home town for a long stay - Newcastle NSW - and it all just happened as per my post. I thought - It's the Solstice. I need to see the sun! So I wrote a Note on Substack - set off for the beach - and It was a totally perfect Summer day. omg.....
I went for a swim, walked up to the kiosk on the terrace above the sand, grabbed my favourite seat, got out my notebook and the poem just.... happened.
I hoped that other people would like it, but the real delight for me was that I knew I had written exactly what I needed to write - whatever anyone might think of it...
Having said that - it is a huge delayed delight that you do like it!!!!!
The bottom of the world. Or the top. I cannot imagine that it is summer there, that the world doesn't flip over. Or open. That I can't crawl through to where you are. That what is true here is also true there--only LATER. Where summer is. Where winter will be again while I am too hot in our much-too-hot summers.
Today will be a wee bit longer than yesterday. And crawl slowly toward spring. And then summer. And then everything will slowly fold up again. Is it magic? Does everyone walk upside down down there? Is everything really just a story for children?
Lol Rebecca. Not everything that is true where you are becomes true here later. At least - I hope not!!!! Though I have to admit, many things do...
However the seasons are definitely magical.
My Dad was a Geography Teacher and he loved displaying the map upside down - pointing out that Europe is only "on top" because the Europeans drew the maps. Dad was always ahead of his time. These days you can buy an "upside down map." They look great too! In fact - I'm gonna get myself one, in memory of my Dad.
Thankyou Caroline. I was thinking of friends in places far from here, getting ready for the longest night - which has its own beauty and meaning. Sorry it’s grey and muddy though!
I saw the first picture you posted of the sea and it felt like a thousand poems were born in me. Your poem couldn't have done more justice to such a beauty as the sea. So many feelings packed together. Hundreds of lives perceived, eternal bodies, and then your own finitude ... our own finitude. Simply in love with this poem ❤️
Let us compare solstices …
Waiting for the NZ sun to finally entice me into some semi-naked adoration, and meanwhile holding onto my techno talisman 😎
Livin' the dream, Ronnie. Livin' the dream.....
Best wishes from over the big lake.
Dave :)
I'm so deep into my own north of equator experience, I had to struggle to keep myself in the moment. Your moment. So different from mine today!
The global Yin Yang of the seasons is a magical thing. We grow up here looking at images of Christmas from Europe and the USA - with cold and snow and short shadowy days... but here it is usually hot and bright and blue and many people head to the beach. I remember my parents explaining it to me as a child, and trying to understand. Best wishes to you for the festive season. Stay warm!
Dave
Exactly!
There's so much to love here. I was first struck by the note about catching a poem like catching a fish. One of my first poems I ever had published had a line I was very proud of that said "catch my gaze and pull it like a fish" about choosing a prompt for a poem. And then that glorious stanza about the surfer encased in water. And the remarkable lines about the woman who will age and "grow beautiful grooves and lines." I teared up at that. It's so true that aging is a privilege and a gift, and if more of us write about it and talk about it and live it like this, we can protect ourselves and our young ones from the poison of believing otherwise. Dave, you always give me so much to consider and feel. Thank you.
Oh, dear Abi....
When I wrote Summer Solstice, a year ago, I was just 4 months into publishing on Substack - after taking a break from publishing that lasted over 22 years.
In those 2+ decades I had lost contact with every other Poet I had ever known, and although I had kept on writing it was at a much reduced rate of output and I had the sense that I needed to retrain my brain to do this all again.
When I wrote Summer Solstice - all in a rush while sitting at that beach - I knew I was back. There was just so much I wanted to say about the scene....
The young women and men glowing with youth and what we term beauty were indeed luminous but - yes - to age is indeed such a gift, and we should be reverent towards it. I have been one of those young men. Now I am an older man. One day I will die.
I could see it all around me - the moment of transcendence for that surfer - the day itself - the world pivoting about the hinge of the solstice - the children, the young adults and the older people they will become - the circularity of it all....
It delights me that you can see what I was seeing.
Best Wishes - Dave
How incredible that the poem came all at once like that. Those poems are so special (and very rare for me). This poem is remarkable for many reasons.
That sense of connectedness comes through so strongly, the connectedness of people to nature and people to one another. And the line of connectedness does not exclude the young or the old. I have been thinking so much how beauty is not just for the young or the strong but for the living. All the actors in Hollywood look, frozen from all their injections, afraid to age, and that’s not a picture of life, but of stasis. There’s something very wrong about accepting this as our vision of beauty. Your poem is a powerful corrective to this kind of thinking.
We are similar in having taken such a long break from publishing and then finding Substack as an avenue to reconnecting with other writers and writing more regularly again. It is such a gift to be here and enjoy the beautiful words of our friends and offer our own.
It was a day of... what they call "flow," I think.
I did not really expect to find a poem when I wrote that I would go searching for one. I did not know it would be such an extraordinarily perfect day at the beach, when I decided to go there. I had no idea what I would write I started...
And often, crowds make me feel excluded and alone...
But everything came together and for that time I did feel deeply connected with everything and with everyone - even the young woman who probably entirely misinterpreted my gaze if she noticed it at all.
I agree with you, Abi. "...beauty is not just for the young or the strong but for the living." It is the gift we are born into - the beauty which surrounds us and of which we are intrinsically a part. Yet we narrow the definitions - or have them narrowed for us by those who simply want to sell us more of their "stuff."
When did you start writing, if it is okay to ask?
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I think that’s noteworthy that the writing made you feel connected to everyone on the beach. I have felt that before. The state of writing is one of attunement with the natural world, very similar to how a child attunes to a parent. I feel watchful in a restful way, alert and aware but not in a stressful way. I think this is why psychologists are beginning to recommend journaling protocols as part of therapy. I have felt how writing gives me a sense of harmony with myself and with others. Maybe because in writing we are paying attention and capturing what is happening around us in the language of words? This act of attention makes writing a loving act I think, even when we have to write about painful things. We honor those we write about simply by noticing them so carefully. It’s something to ponder for sure.
My very first poem was when I was three and it was all about “busily bee” who went up a “tree.” But I remember that I was picturing a ladybug. Ha. Rhyming bee and tree was all it took, and I was hooked for life. I gave poems as gifts from then on to my parents. :) I was much more interested in literary analysis than creative writing in college, so I never considered myself a serious poet until grad school when a professor challenged us to attend poetry readings and write and submit in a workshop-based class. I realized that there were some things I could say in poetry that I couldn’t communicate in prose. I tried to be a “serious poet” for a couple years and made a whopping $230 and had maybe 20 publications, and then I felt so swamped in the baby years that I set it aside and became a wedding and funeral poet.
In January of this year I was telling my sister-in-law that I really missed writing seriously, and she challenged me to do it again. She told me she was going to call me every week and bug me about it, so I started this Substack and committed to writing once a week. It has reinvigorated my writing life to follow so many amazing writers and get so much feedback on my own writing. It feels like a long-distance writer’s club I never knew existed! Thank you for asking such a thoughtful question, Dave, and sorry this answer got so long!
Hi Abi
My thanks to you, my friend, for giving such a detailed and thoughtful answer....
Your reflection on writing as connection, and inclusion - and ultimately as an act of love - mirror my own feelings. I avoid crowds as much as possible, and parties and situations where I need to socialise with strangers - because the shallowness of most social interaction wearies me, and I am not confident or relaxed at doing it at all.
Yet I do feel that most people are good, at heart, even when I feel distant from them. I am far more a people watcher than a people pleaser. Writing is a way of translating what I see and hear into a form of connection which is deeply meaningful to me. It seems we have that in common.
Wonderful that you started so young! I have always loved words, but have no clear poetic creation story like your own. A first book of illustrated nursery rhymes certainly influenced me. The Owl and the Pussycat is still a treasured memory...
I wrote very bad poetry in my teens.
I was pretty good at literary analysis myself, but then it started to bore me and irritate me. It didn't help that my life was in a mess at the time, lol.
I wrote main ly in journals, for myself - apart from a few prose publications. Eventually.... in my mid 30's - I started to write poetry that I was finally happy with, as if it took 20 years to find my voice.
Like you, returning to publication via Substack has been a profoundly enjoyable and creatively rich experience...
I hope your Christmas and New Year are full of love and happiness. Best wishes to you and to your family. To everyone else in the world too...
Dave
I have been thinking about how much Substack is the right amount. LOL. I don’t want very much of my life to be spent online, so I think there’s room for caution, but I see that there’s synergy in exchanging ideas with other writers that is very valuable. There’s probably a bell curve at work here where we can gain the maximum benefit from all the feedback and encouragement without being on the app more than we really want to be.
So beautiful. Again, you took me there. Now I’ll go rinse the sand off my toes and put my woolly socks back on.
Good idea...
I have visitors coming for a late breakfast so now I need to get dressed too, but it will be the bare minimum. Have a happy evening Susan.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Lonely Poet leaving a party ---- this is GORGEOUS Dave!
Hey, Alex. I am just so glad you enjoyed this. It was one of miraculous days when you know what you want to write about, but not the detail, let alone the how, and then it just comes to you, a sublime gift of the sun....
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I realise I’m late to this particular party but I just wanted to say what a wonderful poem this, every word travelling halfway around the world to land in front of me in a perfectly formed, high definition image. Thank you Dave, for sharing 👍
Thanks Dave!
We were back in our original home town for a long stay - Newcastle NSW - and it all just happened as per my post. I thought - It's the Solstice. I need to see the sun! So I wrote a Note on Substack - set off for the beach - and It was a totally perfect Summer day. omg.....
I went for a swim, walked up to the kiosk on the terrace above the sand, grabbed my favourite seat, got out my notebook and the poem just.... happened.
I hoped that other people would like it, but the real delight for me was that I knew I had written exactly what I needed to write - whatever anyone might think of it...
Having said that - it is a huge delayed delight that you do like it!!!!!
D :)
Beautifully written ! Enjoy the views
Thank, Nico! :)
The bottom of the world. Or the top. I cannot imagine that it is summer there, that the world doesn't flip over. Or open. That I can't crawl through to where you are. That what is true here is also true there--only LATER. Where summer is. Where winter will be again while I am too hot in our much-too-hot summers.
Today will be a wee bit longer than yesterday. And crawl slowly toward spring. And then summer. And then everything will slowly fold up again. Is it magic? Does everyone walk upside down down there? Is everything really just a story for children?
Evocative post!
Lol Rebecca. Not everything that is true where you are becomes true here later. At least - I hope not!!!! Though I have to admit, many things do...
However the seasons are definitely magical.
My Dad was a Geography Teacher and he loved displaying the map upside down - pointing out that Europe is only "on top" because the Europeans drew the maps. Dad was always ahead of his time. These days you can buy an "upside down map." They look great too! In fact - I'm gonna get myself one, in memory of my Dad.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I'm getting one, too.
How utterly beautiful, and filled with the light of the sun
Midsummer Solstice blessings to you, and thank you for bringing some sea and blue skies to a grey and muddy midwinter solstice in Sussex, UK
Thankyou Caroline. I was thinking of friends in places far from here, getting ready for the longest night - which has its own beauty and meaning. Sorry it’s grey and muddy though!
Best Wishes - Dave:)
I liked your catch of “ slippery silvery elusory fish”!
Thankyou, Nikos! I would post some Summer to you, but alas it is a perishable product. My words will have to do...
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I saw the first picture you posted of the sea and it felt like a thousand poems were born in me. Your poem couldn't have done more justice to such a beauty as the sea. So many feelings packed together. Hundreds of lives perceived, eternal bodies, and then your own finitude ... our own finitude. Simply in love with this poem ❤️
Dear Nazish. Thankyou!!
Such a lovely comment. You have made my day!
Best Wishes - Dave:)
Thankyou Jeremy. "something to stuff into my pores or pocket".... that is truly lovely...
Best Wishes - Dave :)
A lovely idea, Keith, and far less labour than shifting megaliths!
Dave :)