Wild things celebrate these days of light, these that feel stretched if by giant fingers, dawn in the left hand, dusk in the right, the hours, the shine, taut in between them. There is a singing that comes to the solstice, a song that feels symphonic, and it is the wild that serve as instruments. These are the sounds of solstice, this, the symphony of summer, and the music fills me.
First, always, the cricket song, the chirp that fills the evening, spills into the dusk like crepuscular violins though I love them enough to know they are percussive, if they are anything at all. They are everything to this melody, the first I hear, the loudest, the most omnipresent since my youth. Rub file to scraper, you maestros in miniature, pulse out this hymn that all others will layer their track upon, call it out and teach us the warmth the early summer night holds, we will learn the formula you never needed to, call out in mathematics what you know in the blood of you. What you have always known.
Come now birdsong, float in on zephyr like woodwinds calling from the deep dark like orchestral pit. Call out in your many tones, throaty rumble of raven from the top of ponderosa, staccato repetition of mountain chickadee beyond the feeders I fill, and refill, and whisper tiny prayers to the giant everything whilst doing so. Add your melody robin, harbinger of Spring we wait through freeze and endless night for, staring into forests in search of your red breast, of your song of hope. Gentle buzz from gentle bird, small as a secret known only to the teller, come hummingbird and sprinkle in your sounds, hover until magpie clatters out her call, then alight from such heights and rest a spell, sit with your wings tucked, drink this sugar water, drink as I stretch my imagination to try to understand how weightless you’d feel on my palm.
May I call you shaker, maracas held in skillful hand, may I, sweet aspen? They call you quaking, you of leaf that flutters in the dimness before dark, that alerts of some small wind long before skin registers its presence, they say you quiver. I call you dancing creature, call those leaves fingertips on hands, hands at the ends of arms long, your branches strong enough to sway, to bend and never break. You are the ocean song I have missed all my life, the waves on a shoreline I can, if I shut these eyes tightly enough, just barely see, almost smell, as memory is a potent sense. You rustle and lend rhythm to all those that make music around you. Know I hear you, know this symphony would fade should you fall away.
Oh mourning dove, you so many grow weary of, you too I love. Your soft hoot, mimicry of some wise owl unseen, though so many call you simple. Your call, over and again as sun lifts, again and over as the sun then falls. You of bobbing neck and silly walk, the whistle as you take flight from railing, from porch, like kite string pulled in some gale, like bike bell rang four blocks away. I know your music, I call back to you and watch as your head turns and angles, the universal language of confusion we all speak. I call you choir to this movement, call you tenor, alto perhaps, and think you’re singing to me.
Some distant dog, bark carried on thin air up the mountainside, I wonder of the cello drag your voice creates. Wonder do you warn, do you greet, do you call out for a love you know, separated by lawn and fence, the streets we paved where fields once rest? Early you begin, late you finish, once walks and meals and the affection of your family has calmed all that stirs you.
The fox too, sings, but only sometimes. She is the shrieking wail in the absolute blackness of midnight. She is the forlorn and helpless woman shouting for help in the mystery of the trees that creep down the mountain, the sentinels that guard us. She too sings, she calls for her lover, for her young, born just days, just weeks before. Come to me, screams she, find the glow of my eyes in the moonlight, the flash of russet in a forest of green. Come, and know you are safe here, I will guide you through the wilderness. I stand at open window, cracked for the cooling that nightfall brings, and shut my eyes to the haunting she provides. Closer she comes, for she knows she is safe here, too, safe with me.
Finally, dear early Summer storm, the timpani that rumbles drama each time thunder rolls over the mountains to the West, the cymbal clash, the slap of brass, when lightning reaches down with fiery fingers and tries again to hold my hand. Dance with me, she screams in voice loud as banshee wail, then roars at my denial, shakes the home I shelter in. I stand at window in pitch of night and watch her spin, ballerina of such ferocious power.
My wife shifts in her sheets, the susurrus of her soft slumber, and I calm, I lay and hear the music of her dreams. Safe beside me, and I beside her, we listen to the final fading refrain, the white noise of rainfall on rooftop, on windowpane as a solstice wind rises, then falls again. This is the sound of our solstice, this is the symphony of summer. If we quiet ourselves, fall still in reverence, if we listen, we will know. They sing, we can listen.
*I urge you, with all my swollen heart, to make this a practice of your solstice, of your year, of your life. Listen to the soundtracks of your seasons, of your loved ones, of your beautiful moments on this planet. Listen, hear, and remember. I promise, you will fall so madly in love.*
The sounds of solstice
the symphony of summer.
They sing, I listen.
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