Dawn,
a light in the distant farmhouse still shines with incandescence,
slowly, slowly dimming, swallowed up by the brightening skies.
As I stand in dew sodden shoes, I watch as a late rising blackbird, stretches sleeps stiffness from her wings, taking to the air with a piercing alarm.
To my left, something shifts in the hedgerow, possibly a hedgehog
returning from its nightly rambling, to sleep, undisturbed,
amidst hawthorn and thistle, safe in its spiky armour.
The skies are brightening, colour becomes true, and the mist lifts her veil over the shallow stream, its giggling waters sparkling like diamond facets as the sunlight reaches over the distant hilltops into its clear coolness.
Through half closed eyes, as its rays begin to blind, I feel the sun, its eternal warmth caressing my face.
And the stillness is broken by the first breeze of the day, whispering, sweeping across the golden wheat, like some great hand stroking flaxen hair.
And you are with me.