Solstice Cool Change
Solstice in Truro
Joshua Weiner
Teaching term done, I keep my laptop shut
A chill in the air runs under weak June sun
Chickadee warbler catbird waxwing—
Morning migrant songs drowned by bulldozer next door
The backing up beeping a constant one note feed
From far off, boundless tides crest onto restless sand
How my grandfather made his way, a refugee from Kyiv
How the new war gathers and opens his voice in me
I like this poem. The poet is speaking in the springtime. He recognizes an ending, noting the coincidence between his closed laptop and the end of another term of teaching. Beginnings and endings.
Nature is always on the move. Nothing stands still. Birds are migrants. Migration is the norm. Still, the songs of migration are drowned, drowned out by the bulldozer. I know what bulldozers do. A behemoth carves the earth, riding upon tracks of steel, belching exhaust, the residue of a primeval forest refined into diesel fuel. This is a recent scene in the history of homo sapiens on earth, the juxtaposition of development’s disharmonous beeping, with the backbeat of relentless tides, moving the sand.
I cannot fathom the life of anyone who now lives in Kyiv. A new inner voice opens in the poet, and in the reader of this poem.
These are somber thoughts. What about a change of note, a Cool Change?
