As the lowering sunshine slants across branches of mossy stem and porcelain leaf, tall grass, gold-spun, all wave in the breeze under wagtail’s whirring wings. Seed-heads burst like sparks of fire and doe’s dark eyes soften in genteel grace.

Wings lit by silken light, returned across a velvet vale. Fields linked by rows of poles; tawny owl’s perch, as silently she waits for sunset. Tonight is celebration, of all that the valley’s fabric can dish, standing tall before the first cut, rich in soil and seed, a culmination of what’s planted, what’s sought, a centre of strength, grown from the core of the world, farther than the waning sunlight, more crystalline than the rising moon.

In full glory she arrives from the east, amber and diamond, taking daylight across the dusky dells in a carriage ride across the skies.

A summer’s eve tale traced back to ancient times, held in our hands for this moment to spin like a golden orb, followed across the horizon into unknown lands, soon to wake with dewdrop treasure in the morning.

Now all of life is ours. A ripening of youth, a revelation of mind, a time of summer’s glory.