We got there—SUMMER. Summer, love, magic, and fairies. June 20th is the first day of summer. The season of heat, love, and even a bit of controlled lust. Summer in Arizona can be felt differently in different spots. In southern Arizona Summer can be a blow-torch experience. In northern Arizona Summer is kinder with heat tempered by the brilliant blue sky accompanied by the breeze.
In Summer I think of magic. The magic and mystery of love, and the literature referencing fairies. Maybe it is just the Arizona heat, but I’d pause at the coyote crossing to spy a fairy.
Some quotes:
“The sun goes down,
The stars peep out,
And long slim shadows
Flit about.
In velvet shoes
The quiet dark
Comes stepping soft
O’er wood and park.
And now the world
Is fast asleep:
And fays and elves
Their revels keep.
They fly on the backs of the grey–winged moths,
They skim on the dragon-flies green and gold.
On shimmering dew-wet grass they alight,
Tiny petal-skirts whirl, gauzy wings unfold.
The fairies are dancing beneath the moon.
Hush! See the shimmer of their twinkling shoon!”
~~(Midsummer Night by Elizabeth Gould)
“The greenest of grass in the long meadow grows;
And the stream, how the stream is dancing!
How cool is its kiss on the brown little toes
That find it a playmate entrancing!
Forgotten bad days–
The weary sad days,
Or time all unheeding
That bright hours are speeding,
Forgotten is “bed” by the children in June.”
~~June by Jane G Stewart
I feel the magic and return a bit to my childhood as I read the poems above. Most of us can remember a youthful Summer love, or a time long ago when seeing a fairy was possible. It was possible then because life had not so bruised us, so tainted us, so hardened us. So today, just today, I’ll believe in the existence of fairies.
