Night and Day meet as equals. Summer yields to Autumn, or Winter bows to Spring. We’ve arrived again, poets, to that second seasonal phenomenon of the year. Frank Tassone, here, & ready to host another Haibun Monday, where we craft prose or prose-poetry with haiku. Today, let’s talk about the Equinox!

As I noted almost a year ago to the day:

A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth’s equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise “due east” and set “due west”. This occurs twice each year, around 20 March and 23 September.^[a]

More precisely, an equinox is traditionally defined as the time when the plane of Earth‘s equator passes through the geometric center of the Sun‘s disk.^[7][8] Equivalently, this is the moment when Earth’s rotation axis is directly perpendicular to the Sun-Earth line, tilting neither toward nor away from the Sun. In modern times^[when?], since the Moon (and to a lesser extent the planets) causes Earth’s orbit to vary slightly from a perfect ellipse, the equinox is officially defined by the Sun’s more regular ecliptic longitude rather than by its declination. The instants of the equinoxes are currently defined to be when the apparent geocentric longitude of the Sun is 0° and 180°.^[9]

The word is derived from the Latin aequinoctium, from aequus (equal) and nox (genitive noctis, plural noctium) (of the equal nights). On the day of an equinox, daytime and nighttime are of approximately equal duration all over the planet.

.”

The Equinox marks balance. Even temperature, Equivalent light: the koi fish of the Tai Chi follow each other, both fully evident. Dare we call it the Goldilocks moment? The Middle Way of seasonal living?

Poets have often found inspiration in the Equinox:

Equinox

Elizabeth Alexander

1962 –

Now is the time of year when bees are wild 
and eccentric. They fly fast and in cramped 
loop-de-loops, dive-bomb clusters of conversants 
in the bright, late-September out-of-doors. 
I have found their dried husks in my clothes. 

They are dervishes because they are dying, 
one last sting, a warm place to squeeze 
a drop of venom or of honey. 
After the stroke we thought would be her last 
my grandmother came back, reared back and slapped 

a nurse across the face. Then she stood up, 
walked outside, and lay down in the snow. 
Two years later there is no other way 
to say, we are waiting. She is silent, light 
as an empty hive, and she is breathing.

From Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990–2010. Copyright © 2010 by Elizabeth Alexander. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. for Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org. Courtesy of the Academy of American Poets

Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today

Emily Jungmin Yoon

I read a Korean poem

with the line “Today you are the youngest

you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest

I have been. Today we drink

buckwheat tea. Today I have heat

in my apartment. Today I think

about the word chada in Korean.

It means cold. It means to be filled with.

It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.

Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.

My heart kicks on my skin. Someone said

winter has broken his windows. The heat inside

and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.

Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today

it fills with you. The window in my room

is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say. It’s tea.

We drink. It is cold outside.

From A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco, 2018). Copyright © 2018 by Emily Jungmin Yoon. Used with the permission of Ecco. Courtesy of the Academy of American Poets

Spring clouds —

there in the same place

as last year

            [David Dayson]

 courtesy of the Haiku Foundation

Today, let’s experience the equilibrium of Equinox. Let’s write haibun that states or references the Vernal or Autumnal Equinox.

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 Equinox.
• 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!