Solstice, Fathers, Cattle, Poetry...

Sunday will find us once again at Summer Solstice - the longest day . For anyone who enjoys the summer - do take my share of the heat as well as your own. I heartily dislike this time of year in south western Oklahoma - too darned hot for this northerner, one born in the midst of winter too. Not to appear too churlish though, I should include Solstice Greetings to all. Enjoy it, wherever and however you can!

This year in the USA it's also Father's Day on Sunday. So, best wishes too, to any passing reader who is one of those: a father.

Unrelated to either Solstice or fathers, just to be obtuse ~~~

I enjoyed this video.



It reminded me of an old poem my mother used to recite (her name was Mary).

The poem, by Charles Kingsley:

"O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home
Across the sands of Dee";
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land:
And never home came she.

"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair--
A tress of golden hair,
A drownèd maiden's hair
Above the nets at sea?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee."

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea:
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
Across the sands of Dee.

From here

The Dee Estuary is currently one of the UK’s premier birdwatching locations for wetland and shore birds. With views of the Welsh hills beyond, the estuary is a hugely significant landscape in Cheshire and of international importance in ecological terms. ...........
The Estuary’s status as a place of mystery and legend was assured by Charles Kingsley’s poem The Sands of Dee which tells the tale of Mary and her death on the estuary. It captures the melancholy of the treacherous deserted flats and shifting sands. Rumour is that she can still be heard calling the cattle home to this day. It is a warning to treat the estuary with respect. Whether in summer or winter the estuary has a feeling of mystery with many stories to tell.

 The Dee Estuary (h/t here)

Oh... alright then, it's Father's Day, Sunday, so... a poem oft recited by my father, in remembrance of Dad, who died in 1992. He once gave me a framed version of this poem, it hung in my bedroom for many long years, until eaten by our Great Fire of 1996.

IF
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!


Here we were, Mum, Dad and yours truly, ready for the rain, on vacation in Brighton - around 1947/8 I think.