A meadow sighs
A poem to capture the intense heat of a summer meadow on the edge of an incoming storm.
NATUREPOETRYSUMMER
A meadow sighs
The slender grasses crackled
For days they baked and burned
In heat-stoked, sunbleached fields
Where life was all wrung out.
Fresh greens had burned to ochre
Under a suffocating glare.
The sun shone white
The wildflowers singed
A heat haze blurred the air.
Silently…
Bruising storm clouds gathered
Their swollen pewter mass
Rolled overhead and smothered hills
Extinguished rays of light.
The shadowed meadow shivered
Stirred by a whispering breeze
With a misted sigh exhaled relief
In a buzz of life and wings
And in that space between blaze and shade
A gasp of insects hovered
Mayflies rose, bumblebees swarmed
Waltzing butterflies swirled.
Within a second, no hesitation
As if to a military plan
On the edge of the rain
The swifts shot in
Predator startled prey
Swooped high, skimmed low
Brushed grass, scattered seeds,
Banked and wheeled and swooped again
In a crossfire feast formation.
©Helen Wright