The Longest Day

This is the longest day.
This is the day when
The sun hangs suspended
In pure space
And she stays, refuses
To move at her accustomed
Pace, slows herself, slows
Down and moves her arc across
The sky, her hronr.Ða.d, 
Unwillingly, her golden boat
Halting in the swirl, paddles skirling.

She wants to keep us bright,
Flares her golden fire in our
Faces - a long last birling
Rush of burnished haze 
Before the beat begins 
Backward toward winter.  This is
The longest day - the day she
Stays her barque mid-current
And is generous - throws us
Beneficent brightness before she
Goes

And so she casts no shadow -
Her perpendicular grin beams
Down and all the sundials
Empty one by one, go dim, for
Their black lines are gone that 
Marked our lives as
Grounded and real.  She
Hovers above us, anxious for the
Sake of the commonweal to
Accentuate the gift - rain glad
Gold on our heads, bid us know

This is the long good day which
Casts no shadow and
Stops time.  
All our roofs are warm and children
Play in paddling-pools, jetting
Water at each other as she
Holds, holds, her golden boat mid-
Stream, then rolls across the fulcrum
Dragging time in her wake and a
Whisper-line graces like a 
Feather the sundial's brass face 
Telling the path of persistence and release.

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