winter
We
brave the all-pervading wet and cold
the
biting air, the icy rain. we dream
of
sunny days and mild and balmy evenings.
we
turn our faces to the sky seeking
your
warm embrace. A glimpse of you would brighten
our
days, but you refuse to oblige. We wait ...
spring
… until you draw us out like tender shoots
that spring from boughs and twigs; like blades of grass,
that break the soil and spread into a meadow;
like blossoms sprouting, early messengers
of summer´s fruits. you are
so kind to all,
and all rejoices in your warmth and light
summer
… until we hurry, not to escape the cold,
but you, relentless, glaring
fire ball.
we seek the shadow of our dens, to
avoid
your scorching presence, so ubiquitous,
that just to breathe costs such an
effort. Sunset
brings little
relief. the asphalt has
stored your rays,
emits their memory, consumes the coolness
long-awaited. In the morning looking at the sky
we wish you were not there already
waiting, enveloping us with glowing
air.
Begone, why do you stare so
viciously?
You ´ve sucked up all the rain and stunted
the growth of grain. The harvest´s poor.
The grass has withered, leaves changed colour early,
are gathering on the ground, and all is crumpling
in your stubborn glare. Have
you no mercy?
In vain we plead until ...
Autumn
… rain-heavy clouds have overshadowed you
we breathe again, but summer´s fruits are scarce.
You ´ve let us down. It´s twice you´ve cheated us (by now)
You made us suffer from the cold and dark
in winter, the dismal weather was hard to bear.
But we´re no fools and this time we´ll outsmart you,
faithless sun. We´ll fly to sunnier shores.
by Gudrun Rogge-Wiest, April
2019
What about some more coolness
in the face of the sun like in the following quote:
I don´t have to run after the
sun. I wait till it passes by.
Gerhard
Gundermann, Interview in Neues Deutschland [New Germany]
2.96
The number of temperature records in the still young 21st century has inspired the previous long and the following two short poems.
It
is the warm, gentle rain
and
not the stark, glaring sun
that
is the true harbinger of spring.
April 2019, GRW
You
shouldn´t trust the warm, blue days
the
heart of the sun is cold as ice.
Withered
the stalk that bore the grain,
what´s
left is sorrow, fear and pain.
April
2019, GRW
My own sufferings in hot weather have also led me to look for kindred spirits in literature.
Here
is an extract from Mick Herron´s disillusioned spy novel Real Tigers
(2016), Chapter 7, p. 122…. which is set in London during a heat
wave.
It
was Dame Ingrid´s habit to catch the Tube into work, but she used
her official ride for everything else. It took her now through
streets that were wilting in the heat. When the freak weather had
started it had splashed the capital in colour, but as hot days turned
into baking weeks, brightness had faded like old paint. Greenery
died, turning parks brown and lifeless. People scurried now from
shadow to shadow, wearing the caved-in expressions of trauma
survivors, and greeted rumours of rain like news of a lottery win.
That the weather was not normal was a staple of internet traffic. The
streets, meanwhile, were cruel reflections of an unforgiving sky,
where everything dazzled and everything hurt.
a park in Southhampton, 25 July
2018
This
file is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 4.0 International license.
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2018_Heatwave_Southampton.jpg
By mid-August the lawn was green again because it had rained in the meantime (Photo GRW).
In
order to balance out the two sides, I have added a selection of
pre-climate change sun poetry.
Mostly,
the sun has a beneficial effect.
A
beautiful example is this quote from Charles Dickens´s novel Oliver
Twist
The sun, - the bright sun, that brings back, not light alone, but
new life, and hope, and freshness to man - burst upon the crowded city
in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and
paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it
shed its equal ray.”
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1837-1839
Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1837-1839
The
sun doesn´t distinguish between rich and poor. Its beams reach and
give delight to everyone.
In
Keats´s “To Autumn” it contributes to the ripening of the fruit
which have grown in abundance since spring. “the maturing sun” is
ambivalent pointing both to the effect the sun has and the aging
process it has undergone itself in the course of the year.
To Autumn (1819)
Season
of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close
bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
conspiring
with him how to load and bless
with
fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
Though
John Donne creates quite a different sun persona in “The Sun
rising” (1633) I drew inspiration from his tirade:
Busy
old fool, unruly sun,
Why
dost thou thus,
Through
windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must
to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy
pedantic wretch, go chide
[…]
In
the following extract from the poem “Nosce te ipsum” (1599) bei
John Davis, the relation between soul and body is explored.
Then dwells she [the soul] not therein as in a tent, Nor as a pilot in his ship doth sit Nor as the spider in his web is pent ; Nor as the wax retains the print in it ; Nor as a vessel water doth contain; Nor as one liquor in another shed ; Nor as the heat doth in the fire remain ; Nor as a voice throughout the air is spread : But as the fair and cheerful morning light, Doth here and there her silver beams impart, And in an instant doth herself unite To the transparent air, in all, and part: [...]
Even
pre-climate change, exposure to the sun is sometimes also described
as unpleasant.
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet (1601),
Act I, Scene 2: "[…]
I am too much in the sun."
The
sun stands for the hateful presence of the king.
Sonnet 18 (published in 1609): “Sometime too hot the eye
of heaven shines.”
In
the first lines of this song “Fear
no more the heat o’ the sun” from
Shakespeare´s Cymbeline
the dangers of a scorching sun stand side by side with those of
winter.
Fear
no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor
the furious winter’s rages;
[..]
