A meadow sighs

A poem to capture the intense heat of a summer meadow on the edge of an incoming storm.

NATUREPOETRYSUMMER

©Helen Wright

6/21/20251 min read

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