A new world starts on a valley floor, and that floor is a mountain meadow now, not a lawn: knee-deep sedge sod over the wet middle with golden groundsel heads through it, and stands of corn lily with the drier meadow’s flowers, goldenrod, lavender asters, red paintbrush and white yarrow, where the ground rises a little.
The season is real. The same meadow looks different on another date, because every plant flowers, seeds and cures by the calendar and its meadow’s climate. Gallop across the valley and the thick meadow fills in ahead of you a little each frame instead of in one heavy step.
At midday a sunlit meadow is no longer washed out, with a deeper blue sky, greener grass and granite walls that show their rock instead of a white sheet. Half of every sedge tussock’s blades had been drawn upside down, root in the air, and a fireweed spike or two showed its flowers at the ground. They stand on their roots again in every world.
