What could be more evocative of heady summer days than a meadow in all its blowy, flowery glory?
In this exquisite prose essay, leading naturalist Miriam Darlington takes us deep into the heart of a local meadow in her beloved Devon. She describes how a “drained and threadbare place” is regenerated, how it slowly fills with flowers, insects, mammals and birds until it is teeming with life – a “patchwork of heaven”.
The meadow does its own work, but it is helped by human hands – something that creates a passionate bond between the writer and this special habitat:

“I turned myself over to the hot blue sky, lying among eyebright, pimpernel and meadowsweet. My senses attuned to a tide of cricket-sound, the whirring voice of the grassland.”
from ‘The Summer Meadow’ by Miriam Darlington

There are many kinds of meadow, we are told. By paying close attention to the particular, a treasured place is brought to life in all its vivid and unique beauty.
Poems by EJ Scovell and Katharine Towers.