Solstice Lamentation

George Floyd…

I awaken to the muted songs of birds… the spring cacophony is spent… the brook barely ripples below the house, although the summer green still calms me, a balm for eyes that ache in the waxing, too brilliant, solstice sun – too many hours of light leave me agitated, scattered, pushing me towards mindless doing. Professional writing becomes a chore. I am too tired to read at night because of so much daily physical activity. Beneath the surface, tension works against the part of me that simply wants to be… I long for longer nights to redress this cyclic extreme – an imbalance that also leaves me enervated. Agitation and enervation both. Too much light casts no shadows.

Tomorrow the solstice heat will begin to climb – my summer torment has begun. And with the heat comes the noise of crazed motorcycles and guns. Aggressive people love the Fire, take pleasure out of crushing breath out of the innocent resulting in yet one more death of a black man.* Numbed by this latest atrocity, one that is literally beyond my comprehension, I am at the mercy of flames that I despise, and heat that steals my breath away too. I want to go with the turning facing this fierce inferno but cannot let go of my yearning for stillness, sanity, water, and peace…

The rains have not come. The soil is pitifully dry – vernal pools shrink to a dangerous low; almost two months have passed since we have had a soaking rain. It surprises me that so few notice. Kingfisher hunts hapless tadpoles in a disappearing pond. It seems to me that life’s predators hold sway. I witness drooping leaves and plants, water my garden every day, and try to live with the crushing depression that haunts me. My short term memory is deserting me – I leave glasses in one room and can’t remember where, food gets left on counters, precious pictures are stupidly and mindlessly deleted, where’s my bug net? I can’t stay in my body. Too much pain.

This year I am desperately trying to find someone to replace rotten timbers in my cellar and to interrupt what has become a serious health threatening moisture problem. A local contractor backed out last spring, leaving me searching desperately for anyone to do the work I need done… I would have had all winter to find someone else had he told me he was not willing to do the job. This betrayal requires taking some concrete action that I have yet to take… Three months have gone by and still nothing. I am now wondering how I can get by without replacing the timbers… I am constantly on edge – frightened about what will happen to my cabin, and what this means for me – all this frantic movement going on around me, and I am standing still.

I am weary from repeating an old pattern – why is it that I have so much trouble getting help? Hopelessness rises out of the depths. He has pearl white fangs and too many teeth…

*George Floyd’s horrific dying, while he struggled for breath is a crime so horrific that it has taken a week for me to absorb it. It reflects the gruesome reality of human cruelty. I never saw the video – just one revolting look at the picture struck me dumb.

What upsets me the most is that no one seems to notice the underlying pattern that accompanies these atrocities. First the murder, then outrage and protesting, and finally a return to the status quo. Oh yes, and every time millions to speak to the “hope” that accompanies the protesting – “This time it will be different”. We are a nation addicted to hope.

By the way, what’s the difference between hanging black man from a tree and crushing the breath out of another? Racism is a brutal FACT of human life then and now.

 

If only my bear would come…

If only my bear would come…