Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Long roots moor summer to our side of earth

Today, at last, it's summer. The kids are finally out of school. I've finished grading my final exams. We're going to reacquaint ourselves with the outdoors, where it's green and red-flowered and steamy; I'm going to let my hair bloom and expand for a while before I go jump in the lake. And then in the pool. I'm going to read some books that don't matter and which I probably won't even talk about. There will be some new reviews here, but less frequently.

What other response to summer could I make, loving it as much as I do? Philip Larkin says it best:

Long roots moor summer to our side of earth.
I wake: already taller than the green
River-fresh castles of unresting leaf
Where loud birds dash,
It unfolds upward a long breadth, a shine

Wherein all seeds and clouds and winged things
Employ the many-levelled acreage.
Absence with absence makes a travelling angle,
And pressure of the sun
In silence sleeps like equiloaded scales.

Where can I turn except away, knowing
Myself outdistanced, out-invented? what
Reply can the vast flowering strike from us,
Unless it be the one
You make today in London: to be married?

What reply, indeed. If you can't stop reading this and go outside right now, tell me what you're going to do when you can get there.

3 comments:

Nicole (Linus's Blanket) said...

Warm weather is very distracting. I love going for long walks in the early a.m. before it gets to hot and drinking lemonade in the afternoons.

It's nice that I get my fix of poetry when I come by here. I only know what it means half the time, but I figure it's better than nothing.

lemming said...

Walk the dog. As a human being, there is no higher calling.tch@earthlink.net

Anonymous said...

Sigh. Cataloging books in Russian about detention : criminal-procedural aspects. (Also, it's cold and foggy here.)