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Another astronomical event occurs this week. We, people of the Earth, will mark it in our usual complementarian fashion, depending on which side of the Equator we live. Frank Tassone, here, your host for another Haibun Monday, in which we blend prose and poetry in Basho’s famed Japanese form. This week, let’s celebrate the Solstice.

This year’s first Solstice happens on Thursday, June 20, at 4:51 PM EST. Contrary to popular perception, the Solstice is an event, not a day:

What is it? At the June solstice, the sun rises and sets farthest north on your horizon, and is closest to being overhead at your local noon.
When is it? A solstice isn’t a whole day. Instead, it’s a moment, when the sun is farthest north in our sky. In 2024, the solstice moment will fall at 20:51 UTC (3:51 p.m. CDT) on Thursday, June 20.
Note: On this solstice, the sun will be directly overhead at noon as viewed from the Tropic of Cancer. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the June solstice marks the shortest nights and longest days of the year. For the Southern Hemisphere, it marks the longest nights and shortest days. After this solstice, the sun will begin moving southward in our sky again.

What is a solstice?

Ancient cultures knew that the sun’s path across the sky, the length of daylight, and the location of the sunrise and sunset all shifted in a regular way throughout the year.

They built monuments such as the ones at Stonehenge in England and at Machu Picchu in Peru to follow the sun’s yearly progress.

Today, we know that the solstice is caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis and by its orbital motion around the sun.

The Earth doesn’t orbit upright with respect to the plane of our orbit around the sun. Instead, our world is tilted on its axis by 23 1/2 degrees. Through the year, this tilt causes Earth’s Northern and Southern Hemispheres to trade places in receiving the sun’s light and warmth most directly.

So it’s Earth’s tilt – not our distance from the sun – that causes winter and summer. In fact, our planet is closest to the sun in January, and farthest from the sun in July, during the Northern Hemisphere summer.

Whether we celebrate the longest day or night, a Solstice is an opportunity to be mindful of our space and time, where and when we are. Consider how some haijin celebrate:

Summer Haibun

Aimee Nezhukumatathil

To everything, there is a season of parrots. Instead of feathers, we searched the sky for meteors on our last night.  Salamanders use the stars to find their way home. Who knew they could see that far, fix the tiny beads of their eyes on distant arrangements of lights so as to return to wet and wild nests? Our heads tilt up and up and we are careful to never look at each other. You were born on a day of peaches splitting from so much rain and the slick smell of fresh tar and asphalt pushed over a cracked parking lot. You were strong enough—even as a baby—to clutch a fistful of thistle and the sun himself was proud to light up your teeth when they first swelled and pushed up from your gums. And this is how I will always remember you when we are covered up again: by the pale mica flecks on your shoulders. Some thrown there from your own smile. Some from my own teeth. There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter. Any trace left on the knife will make a kitchen sink like that evening air

the cool night before
star showers: so sticky so
warm so full of light
 

Copyright © 2017 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 7, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

snowflakes flitting down–
a winter solstice
celebration

Issa – translated by David G. Lanoue

Courtesy of Every Day Haiku

Summer Solstice (Haibun)

Deadheaded flowers
tossed into the compost heap—
a new season starts

The excitement of the first day of summer is tempered with the thoughts that the days will be growing shorter, the garden is in a race to ripen before the first frost, and the woodshed still needs to be filled. The work waits while dandelion seeds float on the warm breeze.

The days pass slowly,
years are in a rush to end—
A life of seasons.

A light rain offers little distraction; it’s too wet to work in the garden, but not too wet to walk in the woods. Except for tranquility there is little here to gather; the fiddleheads have all unfurled, the chokecherries aren’t quite ripe, and it’s too warm for mushrooms. At the edge of the meadow the dog flushes a pheasant and turns to look at me— everything has a season.

Bracken waves me on
as if to say it’s too late—
Time for summer things

© C.D Sinex

courtesy of PoemHunter.com

Let’s join in the celebration of the year’s first Solstice. Write a haibun that alludes to either the Summer or Winter Solstice.

New to haibun? The form consists of one to a few paragraphs of prose—usually written in the present tense—that evoke an experience and are often non-fictional/autobiographical. They may be preceded or followed by one or more haiku—nature-based, using a seasonal image—that complement without directly repeating what the prose stated.

New to dVerse? Here is what you do:

• Write a haibun that alludes to the Solstice.
• Post it on your personal site/blog.
• Include a link back to dVerse in your post.
• Copy your link onto the Mr. Linky.
• Remember to click the small checkbox about data protection.
• Read and comment on some of your fellow poets’ work.
• Like and leave a comment below if you choose to do so.
• Have fun!