Bog Myrtle & Peat

There’s a warm, cosy smell on the moss. It comes up where the water pools and the grass bows to the ditches.

Slight sun and a steady breeze, then a day of bruisy clouds above the may blossom. There are cuckoos calling in the stuffiness, and the dykes are rimed with linnets; each one with a twist of wool in her beak. Dry rock rears through the grass in sheets, all dry and flaked with lichen like a half-shed skin.

Back on the hill, the grass is clattering with spiders and beetles. Bristling caterpillars clasp the rush stems and dream of a day when they’ll rise above their worries. I crouch and sympathise, then cattle slop past me with heavy trods.

The bull sinks to his knees in this place, and it’s hard to draw a line between soil and beef.