Today, Day 565 of the daily poems, is 21 June, the Summer Solstice. Our poet Sylvia Sellers says goodbye to an old friend.
Summer Solstice moon
On this the longest day of the year
Sheila is being buried
I’ll be in the church looking at her coffin
flower-bedecked,
wondering what life is all about.
On this the longest day of the year
where is Sheila?
On this the longest day of the year
the moon was banished at day-break
giving way to the sun,
turning night into day
in swathes of pinks to reds
yellows to orange,
and on this day
the sun stays awake ‘til late
until the moon takes over once more
hanging there, golden, in a star-studded, indigo sky.
On this the longest day of the year
where is Sheila?
Her body is burnt
but what of this thing inside our heads
that lets us think all manner of things.
On this the longest day of the year
I think of a respected friend called Betty,
who used to say we should leave a window open
in the room where we breathe our last breath,
so that our thinking bit
can leave the body
in a puff of smoke
and go somewhere,
but where?
Into the body of a newborn baby
Betty would say.
Sylvia Sellers