Juneteenth and Summer Solstice, June 19 and 20
President Joe Biden signed a bill on June 17, 2021, making Juneteenth the 11th American federal holiday. It was on June 19,1865, when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.
Summer Solstice, June 20, 2024, is the longest day of the year and the first day of summer. On this day the Earth and the Sun are sympatico with Juneteenth about equality.
Here are two love sonnets by Countee Cullen, the ‘Voice of the Harlem Renaissance’ to help you celebrate these days:
SONNET by Countee Cullen (b. 1903-d.1946)
I know more about a man whose blood is hot
And rich, still undiminished of desire,
Thinking (too soon), “The world is dust and mire,”
Must feel who takes to wife four walls, a cot,
A hempen robe and cowl, saying, “I’ll not
To anything, save God and Heaven’s fire,
Permit a thought; and I will never tire
Of Christ, and Him all shall be forgot.”
He too, as it were Torquemada’s rack,
Writhes piteously on that unyielding bed,
Crying, “Take Heaven all, but give me back
Those words and sighs without which I am dead;
Which thinking on are lances, and I reel.”
Letting you go, I know how he would feel.”
Tomas de Torquemada (1420-98) was the first Grand Inquisitor in Spain, whose name came to represent the horror, cruelty, and bigotry of the Inquisition. He burned more than two thousand at stake.
FROM LIFE TO LOVE, Countee Cullen, 1925
“Four winds and seven seas have called me friend,
And countless roads have known my restless feet;
Deep crystal springs and pollened buds were sweet
For sustenance their princely fare to lend,
While nameless birds from grove and blossomed bend
Deluged my soul with song; if it were meet
To love Life so, then Love will but complete
My joy, for Life with Love can never end.
Love, I have heard the sweet of your voice, have seen
You pass the dawn-flushed singing hills between;
Now suppliant I kneel and pray you show
The mercied sceptre favored Esther saw;
The dawn in me has broke, and well I know
That Love is King and creed and Persian law.”
(Esther, principal figure of the Old Testament book of
the same name. She was the beautiful wife of the Persian
King Ahasuerus (Xerxes I) who persuaded her husband
to retract a general order to annihilate the Jews.)
Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.
