WEBVTT

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"Solstice."

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"Each year, on the same day,
the summer solstice comes.

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Consummate life.

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We plan for it.

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The day we tell ourselves
that time is very long indeed,

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nearly infinite.

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And in our reading and
writing, preference

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is given to the
celebratory, the ecstatic.

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There is, in these rituals,
something apart from wonder.

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There is also a
kind of preening,

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as though human genius
had participated

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in these arrangements, and we
found the results satisfying.

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What follows the
light is what precedes

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it, a moment of balance,
of dark equivalence.

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But tonight, we sit in the
garden in our canvas chairs

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so late into the evening.

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Why should we look either
forward or backward?

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Why should we be
forced to remember?

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It is in our blood,
this knowledge.

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Shortness of the days,
darkness, coldness of winter.

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It is in our blood and bones.

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It is in our history.

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It takes genius to
forget these things."

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