Kevin Cowdall

I mark the erratic progress
of a fluttering butterfly;
dipping and bobbing,
a dash of creamy-white
...

Appearing suddenly
from the shadows
beneath the hedge,
it scurries in short
...

Snow fell gently overnight,
settling everything around
in an even mantle of white.
...

A backward glance revealed
the path of our footprints across the sand;
a Morse-like string of dots and dashes,
leading from the steps across the deserted beach
...

The photograph lay
Dusty and aged,
Upon a shelf,
Forgotten.
...

The sun was out in force when we arrived
and it felt somehow incongruous -
as if there should have been heavy rain
and perhaps the threat of thunder
...

A languid childhood summer,
timeless in its innocent pleasure.
A hedgerow clothed with dusty speckles;
black, purple and crimson,
...

A solitary chaffinch
declared dominion over our garden
and set its throne amid the
bare branches of a winter-brooding tree.
...

Life is peopled with
one-dimensional characters
slightly out of synch:
while death is merely
...

Like a white lace
whatnot
slowly turning grey -
an insubstantial
...

I can think
of nothing so forlorn
as a graveyard
in the midst of winter:
...

En vieillisant on devient plus fou et plus sage
As we get old we become at the same time more foolish and wiser) .

François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld - Réflexions.
...

I entered a room
and saw a girl
sitting on a chair.
She looked at me
...

There is something haunted
about an abandoned schoolyard.

Distant shouts and cries
...

Fingering with studied expertise
the various knick-knacks and curios
of someone else's unwanted memories
I find a tiny elephant carved in ivory.
...

From time to time
on such still, calm days
a whisper of breeze
stirs the water like an arpeggio.
...

There are those who believe seals
to be the reincarnation of souls lost at sea.

Now, I see one swimming;
...

...

Sleeky
black like fresh tar,
he seems to glide across
the moor, ears pricked and mane and tail
...

I stand
and watch my children
at play in the garden below.
...