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Midsummer's Eve in a Harsh Climate, by Grace Marie Grafton

8/14/2017

3 Comments

 
Picture
Midsummer's Eve in Norway, by Christian Skredsvig (Norway), 1886.

Midsummer's Eve in a Harsh Climate

It wasn't a fiddle, it was an accordion.
So we started, so we continued while June light
rinsed evening air into shadow. Recalled wishes
like not-yet-moths, fluttered around our heads. 
A spree of dumbstruck would-be-ers
hoping for a lick of fun in a somber life,
we'd allowed ourselves license to ride the tide
with a ransom of music and some modest laughter.
How about a song? Can't dance in a boat but
the beat of the oars and the way light in the willows
peeked at us from shore lent us the text 
to an old drinking song. Spirits come in many forms.
Raise the cup, dunk sorrow, it's a new chance now. 
Are we equal to joy? A little jelly to spread gleaming
over the continent of pain.

Grace Marie Grafton

Grace Marie Grafton’s most recent book, Jester, was published by Hip Pocket Press. She is the author of six collections of poetry.  Her poems won first prize in the Soul Making contest (PEN women, San Francisco), in the annual Bellingham Review contest, Honorable Mention from Anderbo and Sycamore Review, and have twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Poems recently appear in Sin Fronteras, The Cortland Review, Canary, CA Quarterly, Askew, Fifth Wednesday Journal, poetrymagazine.com and West Trestle Review.
3 Comments
Tobey Hiller
8/14/2017 01:43:38 pm

Elegiac, delicate.

Reply
Gene Berson
8/14/2017 02:25:21 pm

True joy enkindles the heart and is an antidote to war and the daily news as we know it. This poem and picture are invitations to celebrate. Thanks much to Grace Grafton, ballerina of light!

Reply
Dorothy Kogl
8/16/2017 07:09:02 pm

As someone who grew up in North Country, I likes the way you caught the contrast between he dark night and the sad desperate attempt of the people in the boat to find "a lick of fun in a somber life" and " ransom of music and some modest laughter." Midsummer's Eve in Norway would be as light as day, so I assume the artist made his picture dark to suggest that the inner lives of the people are unhappy, counterparts to the harsh outer world. The dumbstruck would-be-ers" wonder if they're equal to joy? A little jelly to spread gleaming/over the continent of pain." The scheduled time for festivities is wholly inadequate to dispel day-to-dat reality. But why are the foursome in the boat? Where are they going and why?

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