Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the official beginning of the season that inspires so many mixed feelings. Reflect for a moment on the associations, literary and otherwise, that come to mind when you think of the word summer. There are happy ones: the boys of summer; the girls in their summer dresses. There are not-so-happy ones: summer camp; summer school; summer festivals, so hot and crowded. Obviously, there were good reasons why somebody came up with the phrase summer doldrums.
And then there are the tossups: the Summer Olympics (we dread the hype, even though we know we will be seduced once this year's games begin under those flawless Greek August skies); summer vacation (is there a phrase in the English language more full of promise and peril than that one?); and the bittersweet last rose of summer. And let's not forget Japan's very own Summer Sonic, always a mixed bag.
Poets, too, have dwelled on the season since the first one put pen or brush to paper. Some were apparently not that excited about it one way or the other, content merely to note its arrival: "Summer night," yawned the ninth-century tanka poet, Ki-no Tsurayuki: