After Solstice

Today’s draft is a fragment of an idea, the draftiest draft I have sent out in a while. I used to keep from writing down half-formed ideas like this, out of some notion that I couldn’t write it down until it had more shape. I’ve lost a lot of poems that way. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere — how much is lost because we wait for perfection.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedA friend reminded me that these days of summer are the saddest ones. Each day shorter than the one before itthe bright notes of a descending scale into winter.We are short months before the switch to minor key.I see the sound of green, illuminated by sunrise,in the house sparrows and gray squirrels doing the serious work of summer.