I love how everyone in Sweden takes off after Midsummer and enjoys the quiet life in their holiday homes. The empty halls in the office building and the quiet floors offer plenty of time and space for reflection.

When summer’s hush falls over land and sea,
And golden light drifts soft through quiet streets,
The weary souls have fled to forests free,
Where time is lost in waves and warm retreats.

The empty halls, like castles left to dust,
Hold echoes of a hundred fleeting days,
Where voices, now but whispers in the gust,
Still murmur of their long-forgotten ways.

Yet in this hush, a dreamer walks alone,
The stillness bending time to thought’s command,
Where past and future weave in undertone,
And silent hands shape futures softly planned.

For though the world may wander far and wide,
The heart’s true work is where the echoes bide.

Or as W.H. Auden would probably write:

When summer’s light in Sweden softly falls,
The city breathes a quiet, gentle sigh,
As office doors stand still in vacant halls,
And colleagues drift to lakes and open sky.

The empty rooms, like echoes from the past,
Invite reflection in their silent space,
Where memories, like shadows, gently cast,
A canvas bare, where future dreams find place.

In solitude, the mind begins to roam,
Through pathways once obscured by daily din,
The lonely hum becomes a whispered poem,
Where thoughts of purpose, clear and strong, begin.

And in this stillness, plans take root and grow,
For in the calm, the seeds of vision sow.