Postcard from the backseat

It's the same 4am start as every year,    
the cold hard shiver of plastic car doors      
rattled down miles of motorway.      
Field mist making shapes on dark horizons,      
as warmth finally brings a sleeping bag      
and zips me in and out of conciseness.       
   
I wake in Somerset,      
blinded by rapeseed in a blaze of yellow.      
There are few sights more wonderful,      
than a field of flowers to remind me      
I have escaped the pastels of concrete.      
     
I crack the window inside Devon and join the dog      
as we sniff the ocean together,      
its scent rides the coast road      
all the way to the welcome sign.      
     
Tomorrow I'll watch the trawlers at first light  
taking their colors to wash them with the tide,    
then climb among the nesting gulls,      
a warm breeze folding my feathers      
to rest in a bed of bracken, lay back      
under a big sky and feel the faint tremor      
of waves pounding on the rocks below.      
     
In the end, a sense of sadness will fill the car    
with petrol and leave behind my minds eye,  
as an August moon collides with coastal downs,    
leaving the last silver balm of our holiday,