Field Light – a walk through five fields

butterfly light

at the top of the flint-walled ivy tunnel into a bright dry hay field, bramble hedges sop up the summer sun, the gate kept, guardian wings flicker orange brown.

sea and lagoon light

through the kissing gate a field of strong sugar-beet plants – dark green, juicy leaves, not needing hand-singling with a hoe, along the path

scarlet pimpernel, common fumitory,

field poppy, bugloss, wild radish, toadflax, bindweed,

hedge of tall alexanders with umbels of tarry seeds, sand spurrey, the ivy-grown brick bunker above, rusting dock spires, redshank, mallow, bird’s eye speedwell, knot grass,

procumbent pearlwort, knapweed, toadflax, cat’s ear, mayweed, mugwort, agrimony.

barley light

steep blackthorn hollow-way, loose stones on the path, tread carefully and take the left fork, birds calling in the tangle could be willow warblers,

soft and silky reflecting spring barley, a little green still in the stalks shimmering like velvet,

tramlines double stitched, the path swoops down through the middle of the crop,

flattened by last week’s thunderstorms, rises again into the wind,

its dogleg white blonde, rustling silk skirts, blue-white flints embedded in the chalky soil, each beaded barley head tight plaited, crab boat dances in the white tops, a plane rumbles its propellors, lark not so high.

chamomile light

an arch of hawthorn in the hedge,

in the deep ploughed furrow beside the grassy path sunspurge, pink and white convolvulus, white wild radish, wild oats tall and ticklish,

on the bank alexanders, no leaves – dying stem and umbel architecture, dark red docks, tractor below mowing grass on the marsh, small fields, high tree hedges, autumn barley dry and ripe, heads folded down on thin stalks.

corn marigold and poppy light

burdocks a dark furry entrance,

looking across towards Walsey Hill and Cley saltmarsh dotted with galloways,

small and wilted sugar-beet full of marigold,

poppy,

bugloss, overlooked by dour and dark heathlands higher up, a brooding skyline,

turn round,

flower-strewn barley and blue sea at the top,

four larks rise up.