For Paul Brookes’ December challenge. You can see the prompt here.

Meadow-laundering

There’s a churning of the seasons in a meadow,
not a pasture, champed and cropped
and clumped tussocky mud by clomping hooves.

Not a pasture with the one or two types
of grass that the munchers prefer,
dull as ditch water, a refectory,
but a meadow,

a quilt that spreads and gleams,
bee- and bird-full,
where cats and martens stalk,
the hare hides her young, and deer
lie in lazy dreams on balmy moonlit nights.

A meadow, cloth-of-green quilt,
coloured and stitched with gold
and blue and every shade of pink,
white frothed and dotted, a sea,
gently foaming.

And high summer, its work done,
flowers faded and seed set,
the mower lays it all to rest,
bundled and rolled up neat and tight,

the brown and the spent,
and the earth stretches,
spreads its sparkling newness,
its…