Winter solstice instant of the solstice can be calculated, direct observation of the solstice by amateurs is impossible because the sun moves too slowly or appears to stand still (the meaning of "solstice"). However, by use of astronomical data tracking, the precise timing of its occurrence is now public knowledge. One cannot directly detect the precise instant of the solstice (by definition, one cannot observe that an object has stopped moving until one later observes that it has not moved further from the preceding spot, or that it has moved in the opposite direction). Further, to be precise to a single day,
Home After Three Months Away with the line, "Cured, I am frizzled, stale, and small." The line implies that the treatments he received at McLean Hospital left him feeling worse. Home After Three Months Away 'Home After Three Months Away' is one of several "confessional" poems by Robert Lowell which appeared in his book "Life Studies". The poem was written after Lowell started returning home for weekends from the McLean Hospital, where he was being treated for mental illness, in Belmont, Boston in early 1958. Lowell was finally released from McLean in June 1959. Ian Hamilton, who wrote a biography on Lowell, suggests that the