A Field in Autumn by Nina Mingya Powles

Writing with the Seasons - October 2023

Welcome to ‘Writing with the Seasons,’ a collection of writing prompts, ideas and inspiration that follow the rhythms of the natural world as the year unfolds.

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This month, our essay is by poet, writer, maker and librarian Nina Mingya Powles, who writes ‘Comfort Food’ a monthly series of notes on cooking, comfort and memory.

One warm day in very early autumn, I saw a bird hovering in mid-air above the field. It was around the size of a magpie but speckled and brown, with a sleek head. Its wings vibrated in the wind. It held its position, then dived into a clump of long grass. I knew there were birds of prey on Hampstead Heath, but I’d never seen one until now. I take my dog Kaya to this field almost every day. I’ve learned from watching her attentiveness that the long grass is full of all sorts of unseen movement underfoot: voles, mice, frogs, the occasional rat. I watch her pause mid-sprint to sniff a patch of weeds, her tail trembling high in the air, before she jumps ecstatically into the underbrush. She never catches anything, but this doesn’t deter her.

I’m learning the shape of this field through the seasons: the way the texture and wetness of the earth changes, the colour of the thistle as the flowers die back.