Goodbye to the longest day of the year

It's the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. At quarter to nine, there was enough light to see clearly and walk outside. A quarter moon was high in the clear sky, still blue from the hot midday, not yet given up color for blackness. I thought of the telescope I got for Christmas nearly 50 years ago, packed in its box in a closet. I should get it out and look at the long shadows cast by the sunlight on the hills and craters of the moon, but unpacking the scope, setting it up, then taking it down, would take too long. I settled for a long, bare-eyed look at the moon floating high in the sky.

Today's heat was a reminder of solar power. The aluminum knob atop my car's shift lever was blistering hot when I left the office. Stepping from the cool office to the late afternoon heat made me gasp, and the enclosed car sitting in the sun was hotter yet. Temperatures in the 90s are predicted all week. Although on this day the sun takes its most direct aim at this place, late June is usually not the hottest time of year. Usually that comes in July or August after the Earth's surface and atmosphere and cloak of seawater have had a few months to absorb and store the sun's heat.

But even now, even as the afternoon temperatures climb higher for the next few days, we are already headed for a rendezvous with darkness and cold. Even on this longest day of the year, the twilight approaches. These long afternoons will grow shorter until the evening meal is surrounded by darkness. The lower sun will lengthen shadows; bright sunlight will evolve into an annoying glare. The nights will become as long as this day. Six months from now, in deepest, dark December, the sun will halt its southward dip and head north again, a simple phenomenon of planetary physics, a fact of living on a planet whose axis is tilted 23 degrees.

This summer solstice marks the day when Earth's axis leans farthest toward to sun; the winter solstice is the day that axis points farthest away. On this day, we celebrate the longest daylight of the year and head, inexorably toward the twilight.

Winter Solstice and trips to Charleston

Today marks the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, and the turning point toward longer days that lead, ultimately, to spring. This astronomical phenomenon reminds me of the poem my son wrote about his experience on the solstice in 2001, when he left his garage apartment in Greensboro, where he was beginning work toward a master of fine arts degree in poetry. It had fallen to him that day to go early to my childhood home and drive my parents to a family gathering in Charleston, S.C. He was a good trouper and a faithful grandson to drive my parents' car on a trip they no longer could navigate alone while amusingly but lovingly observing their peculiarities.

The poem that grew out of that incident was published in the News & Observer in 2005, when that newspaper devoted a weekly feature to little-known North Carolina writers. The poem reads, in part:

Before sunrise I'm driving south on 220, thinking of light,

how narrow its window today. The high-beams against

the sleeping grass glint back a mangled warp and weft,

galaxies in fast-forward across the winter sky. In their house

on Highway 74, my grandparents are just waking.

They shuffle through the kitchen like wind-up toys

with weakened springs. ...

I am freshly back from that annual trip to Charleston, the eighth year that my parents did not make the trip and the fourth Christmas season since their deaths. All of us, not only my poetic son, carry memories of Mother and Daddy feeling awkward and uncertain in Charleston among luxury and extravagance as unfamiliar to them as the far side of the moon. The charms of Charleston — the food and drink and shopping and architecture — carried little appeal for them. In this intimately walkable city, they contented themselves to permanent seats in the hotel lobby, where they could see the comings and goings of their children and grandchildren. Their enjoyment of this city was not in its tourist attractions but its two dozen or so visitors whose names they knew. They would be happy to know that we're still traveling many hours to gather for a few hours to keep track of their great-grandchildren's progress and of the new arrivals to the party.

We gather each year close to the Winter Solstice, a date when daylight stops its waning; the darkness cannot overtake it.

Autumn paints the landscape as solstice approaches

The last few days have painted eastern North Carolina in unusual beauty. The autumn colors are sparkling beneath a deep blue sky. The low humidity and cool nights have turned green leaves into reds and golds, and the blue sky forms a matte for nature's painting. The low-hanging sun glares on leaf-covered lawns and blinds drivers.

It's still six weeks until the winter solstice, when the daylight marks its shortest span. Until that date the darkness seems to be winning its battle against the light. Our ancestors celebrated this mystical date, when the conquering darkness begins to recede, when daylight begins to regain its strength, when light and warmth at last prevail over the fearful power of cold and dark. You can still see bits of these ancient joyous celebrations in modern Christmas traditions, by which Christians co-opted the ancient solstice celebrations and Roman Saturnalia — the lighting of candles, the collecting of evergreens, the nighttime festivity, the yule log.

As the darkest of days approaches, we are treated to nature's most spectacular display — colors unknown through 10 months of the year. The flat land of North Carolina's coastal plain lacks the spectacular views of the mountains four hours to the west, where the bright colors seem to go on forever, crease after crease of reds and golds spread out like a rumpled quilt. But even here, where there are no peaks or overlooks and few hills worthy of the name, the colors are spectacular, and even a stroll through neighborhood streets can dazzle the eye.

I spent a couple of hours Monday blowing and raking leaves in my yard, repeating the work I'd done just a few days before. This annual labor of autumn is the price we pay for the spectacular combination of red and gold leaves against a blue sky. It is well worth the cost.