... When I first glimpsed it from a distance through a gap between the trees, it struck me as a jolly and ceremonial site, and its yellow glow seemed exceptionally pure and even. I went up to take a closer look: it was an overgrown field which had lain untouched for many years and was now covered by a dense layer of low shrubs of some sort. I suddenly caught their scent in the air - a pleasant, flowery aroma with a faint bitterness to it. “That must be yellow rocketcress,” I thought, recalling an item I had once read in my botanical encyclopedia, “a weed, or something like one...”

A fresh breeze ruffled this living carpet, and the entire field was bathed in waves of gold which rippled over it playfully and rolled all the way over to the walls of the forest, which the sun had left in the shade, creating a striking contrast between the dark green of the forest and the bright yellow of the field. “Like a golden chalice encased in malachite,” I mused.
High above me a kite soared through the sultry June sky. I sensed from the intense heat that a storm was coming. A vast dark cloud, packed full of rain, had already appeared on the western part of the horizon. Only in the highest part of the sky did the edges of the clouds sparkle with a blinding gleam, like melted silver, as they swiftly changed places and moved past one another, emitting an unbearably bright light. The wind picked up, and the yellow rocketcress flowers began to gyrate in the breeze as if performing some sort of exotic dance.

The song of a bevy of larks rang out from somewhere out of sight, passionate and unrelenting. It was as though the flowers and the woods themselves, and this field, so far removed from all human habitation, had joined together in song during this moment of calm before the storm. Some grey raindrops began to fall from the sky and get caught in the thickets of the gilded yellow rocketcress. Some of the larks glided over the field itself, fluttering from flower to flower and filling the area with an incessant milling sound. Others, flapping their wings every few seconds, flew straight up into the air and hovered four or five metres above the ground, glorifying life with their cacophanous song.

The gathering storm filled the sky with towering clouds, bluish-pink in places as if aglow on the inside, and I saw that there was now no more than a small window of bluish sky above the woods, from which rays of sunshine were cascading towards the earth like a broad, straight waterfall, bathing the fragrant flowers in the soft, warm light of summer. And in the tense, electrified air, the down from the aspen trees floated in circles, forming a snowstorm which raged silently. Then there was a deafening clap of thunder, and the first big drops of rain came lashing down on the golden flowers of the rocketcress. At the instant when the rainstorm arrived it suddenly seemed as if nature, teeming with life, was heaving an almighty sigh of relief and gladness, and that all of the flora and fauna were filled with joy by this glistening, rousing rainfall as it beat down on them in thick jets.

Wet through and alone in this misty field, which had suddenly fallen silent as if overwhelmed by the elements, I too exalted in the intoxicating bliss felt by someone who is blessed with the opportunity, perhaps twice a year, if that, to observe and experience nature in this beautiful state of excited arousal.