the longest day of the year.

Daylight... warm sunshine. Things she craved - loving their abundance in summer, and rueing their relative absence in winter.

But this was summer, not winter - warm, bright, sunny - bright blue skies lasting for hours and only fading in late evening.

Yesterday had been the longest day of the year - well, really, the longest daytime or daylight of the years - and today, the first day of summer. She sat in her backyard, looking up at the still bright blue sky of early evening, recalling how, several months earlier when daylight had been much shorter, she sat in this same spot and gazed up at the night sky - the resplendent beauty of the stars, glittering in the darkness.

This evening, a warm breeze wafted through the trees and a windchime played its slow melody. A few clouds drifted through the blue sky above. Trees, flowers, kissed by warm sunshine - the resplendent beauty of the earth in summertime.

How is it that these long days seem so short, and the short days of winter, so long? she wondered...