In the Burned Grass

In the sun-burned grass

- a wispy covering

for the scorched ground -

there are wild flowers.

Tiny dots of rapeseed yellow

punctuate the brown-paper shreds,

though those unknown weeds

like a buttercup's impoverished

cousins have no value.

Here and there

are purple and red pinpricks;

they might be pimpernels,

but for the ease of finding them

and the time of year.

In the sun-burned grass,

a dried-up promise

to fill the autumn air

with perfumed colour.