Names are arbitrary; conquering power's influence of calendars; Lunar, Gregorian, (from the 1582 when the Pope Gregory XIII instated 365 days a year plus an extra day every four years (except in years divisible by 100 but not by 400)). But the name of June, meaning 'young' after the Roman goddess Juno, is still carried by months and women, still infatuating students with graduation and warmth of school-less days, still calling bridegrooms and their betrothed into covenantal unions, farmers into planting, celebrations of liberation and flags.
When I think of you, June, I think of warming days, when it's not too hot yet and nights are still cool, I think of biking to the pool and stopping by Kmart for junk food, I think of all the fantastic plans and promises the summer holds, of re-reading messages in year books and recycling finished notebooks.
Oh June, when I think of you I think of the land, and now in a far-off climate I don't know who you are anymore, you're just a name, just a memory, a flickering idea of hopeful youth holding great expectations that were never burdensome. Holding hope now is a tricker exercise, it's weight becomes heavier unexpectedly, the unrealized and not yet grow taunt with stinging doubt.
Oh, June. Here you are watermelons and peaches, lemons and grapes ripening on the vine, fields turning brown, the beginning of waiting for the winter rains. I wanted to write a simple haiku, an ode to the beauty of June, and I found the ageless grief instead. Can you, will you, lift my head?
