the sun finally shone on seattle today. summer is the time of year i feel most at ease in my own skin (perhaps it is because i'm not shivering). and so, in honor of the solstice, i share these words from may sarton & an image of summer by
parvin {licensed under a creative commons license}.
Now I Become Myself
Now I become myself.
It's taken Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,"Hurry, you will be dead before--"(What? Before you reach the morning?Or the end of the poem is clear?Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and
Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
how does summer speak to you?
blessings,
k
