The morning light is bright, expectant

Footsteps echo, voices are soft

Riverside homes wait quietly

Behind pots of vibrant summer flowers

Banks of grey mud, gleam

Reflecting silvered sunshine

 

A woodland underworld opens

Inviting the traveller into its kingdom

To shelter beneath a leafy tree-made bower

Sharp noonday sun filters through

A moving cover of green

Dappled light coats the woodland floor

Pock-marked by old stumps of oak

Become with time, moss covered rings

 

A scattering of dried leaves, reminds us

Of the autumn and winter that came before

Now serving as pages in the book of days gone by

 

A passing train breaks nature’s solace

Filling the air with its own steady rhythm

 

Afterwards, in the sudden quiet

Birds find their sweet voices

Each singing its own tune

Adding to the light-filled scene

Filling a natural auditorium

Building the theatre that is midsummer night

So that in occasional moments of silence

We can wait for the day’s end

When the air becomes sultry and humid

Heavy with aromas of full blossoms and ripe berries

Hinting at the magic that is to come

 

As the darkening begins, woodland creatures stir

Not yet ready to settle

The air fills with fireflies and wonder

Day merges into night

Then comes the bewitching hour

When the portal of possibilities springs open

And a threshold may be crossed into the unknown

When, through a veil of mist, a different world is seen

Fairies, sprites pixies and goblins cavort in a green world

 

Challenging what we know to be true

Moving on the wheel of time

Celebrating closure and new beginnings

Bringing the harvest home

Gifting momentum to the year’s cycle

Making ready a new life