Earth

At night soil dreams in silent technicolour, peaceful and alone. It exhales gently without the trampling of mankind snapping roots; without the world above and its usual stampede. Branches notice it first, having time to stretch, to watch stars appear; time to open bark and bow wide, sprawling and luscious. Away from daily smokes and steams, the sky is a black mosaic of golden shards. Rivers lap, sigh upstream. Birds fly in a chorus, circling in trills below the moon’s pupil-white skin. Fields are resting their patchwork bodies, the tissue of grass sewn from the earthly vapours of oak, birch, ash. Nature’s legs grow stubbly at night, wild and unshaven. In the morning a rabbit stands on its haunches, saluting the sun.