It is the longest day of the year.
I stood by the river, between two trees.
Between two days. Between two seasons.
Nature knew, and an invisible layer of magnetic pollen
Hovered above the grass, hazily
Lazily reverberating between the branches and leaves above.
And I looked around:
Where is everyone?
They’ve missed it?
An ancient place, here on Midsummer Common,
And everyone has missed it.
I wanted to lie in the grass again,
Like last night,
But tonight my linen shirt will soak up the droplets.
The river is still
A perfect reflection
Of the rowing club houses and pollen dizzy trees, all still,
till a tail of a fish breaks the surface tension.
Blop.
It’s the longest day
And I’m staying out longer,
And I can no longer tell if it’s sunset or sunrise.
Maybe a few hours have passed me by,
Or maybe I was caught between two states, stretched out
Between past and future.
From somewhere far, I could hear the sound of a rusty bike chain
pushed, pushed, pushed.
Everything’s still. Quiet. No-one around. I walked
Quietly back along the empty streets.
“Where is everyone?”
I asked Sam from the pub down the road,
As walked by him, on my way home.
“I’m here” he said, standing outside his pub looking at the sky.
“It’s summer solstice” he said.