Instant poem: Not my sun

One person standing on a vast beach under a blue sky
Bliss on a beach in Aotearoa-New Zealand
We lay little in the sand
and the sun the sun
sweetly squeezed our shoulders.
We belonged to our father
the sun.

We lay long on the lawn
doing deals with the sun.
We broiled ourselves in coconut oil
sizzling our perfect skin
for our personal chef, the sun.

We opened our arms in the sea
and lifted our face to the sun
our personal private sun.
We married
our hero the sun.

Now late I know
the sun is not mine alone
not a personal sun but a neutral one
its warming trapped and magnified
by too many frantic us.

I hide my eyes I hide my skin
with cream and sleeves and hats.
I show myself to the sun
from a darkened peepshow booth
not letting him in.

And the weather reporter reports with glee
another drought embedded
another sunny day ahead.
Everyone go to the beach! Whoopee!
for your personal dose of sun.

~ Rachel McAlpine 2021

11 thoughts on “Instant poem: Not my sun

  1. We mostly try to avoid it now. Not too difficult in the UK!

  2. Your poem reminds me of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro which has a lot to say about our relationship with the sun – with plenty of irony too.

    1. Rachel McAlpine says:

      I must read that then. Thanks.

  3. haoyando says:

    Hahaha. The sun is the ultimate provider of energy for all the cooking in the world.

    1. Rachel McAlpine says:

      True that. I’m thinking 199 ways of looking at the sun

  4. judibwriting says:

    We are doing our slow dance towards the next sol-stice, which will signal the eventual end of winter for us in the midwest U.S., the end of summer for you. 23.5 degrees we incline towards and away from him. Seasonal dark and light. Amazing. Stay cool and we will stay warm as fall has fell around here.

  5. How our attitudes have changed – nicely evoked

    1. Rachel McAlpine says:

      Thanks Derrick. In me there’s a kind of cognitive dissonance when I hear weather reporters raving in ecstasy about unseasonally high temperatures. I too love a warm sunny winter day, yet I am also kind of screaming inside.

      1. That is so true.

  6. Margaret says:

    Lovely beach scene Rachel. Had a lot of rain recently in uk

    1. Rachel McAlpine says:

      Seems to be all or nothing!

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