Summer Meadows

To lie in summer meadows with tall grass all around, eyes fixed and staring into endless sky. Tracking across the heavens, trying to locate the sound of a skylark’s endless warble up on high. Feeling a sense of drowning in a pool of endless blue, the shouts of friends at play are distant now. I turn my head and stare at meadow plants of every hue, and swat a curious insect from my brow. To sit in summer meadows plucking petals from a flower, to love or love me not the idle quest. Blowing tufts from dandelion heads to check upon the hour, or plucking a buttercup for the butter test, or watching lively ladybirds scurry across my hand before, all patience gone, they fly away. Distracted from my reverie by a squadron of squabbling swifts, signalling the closing of the day. To run through summer meadows with kite or whipping arrow, stopping to adjust an errant shoe, sending plumes of pollen skyward, energy unbound, clover heads beating a tattoo. Then, what next? Chase butterflies, dark green fritillaries, brimstones, painted ladies, cabbage whites, with a butterfly net I made that morning from a garden cane and the foot from a cast-off pair of mother’s tights. To walk through summer meadows at the closing of the day, all energy spent, hungry, tired and sad. To hear my mother calling that, “Playtimes long since past”, and,” if you don’t come now you’ll answer to your dad”. One last fling of my whipping arrow, a parting game of tick with chums as weary but still full of play, then off we trot, homeward bound in the gathering gloom, shouting promises to meet again next day.