Sickle winged swifts sail, caressing the earth
Diving, celebrating the midsummer silence
Ears of wheat, row upon ripening row
Succumb to the metachronal rhythm
Of a warm midsummer wind
Fields softly undulating
Like waves lapping a chalk white shore
Here, the living worship the dead with weeds
Enshrine them in wild flowers
Let the earth reclaim them
High hedges hung with meadowsweet
The longest hours of light
Perfumed with honey and almond
Oscillating with energy, tangible in the midday heat
Ancient paths and tracks intersect
Here, a spring rises and gurgles forth from the field
Merges with the path and washes away
Cleansing you as you make your pilgrimage
Here, a scarp climbs endlessly
Narrow and lined by beech
Which drop their leaves like confetti
Breadcrumbs leading to Bury hill
A bowl burial mound, a funerary celebration
Under a vast and endless sky
Here, lay an offering of field poppy and hawkbit
Plant a wish in the folded earth of the Sussex downs
