Chaffinch Poem by Kevin Cowdall

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

Foraging forlorn, stone-hard earth,
it sought a higher perch
and flit from sill to sill
between kitchen and dining-room.

Bread crumbs are a removable feast
spread on a table to tempt such precocity,
and a clarion tap-tapping of the glass
soon belayed trust into routine.

There is an admirable majesty
in such a singleness of purpose
beyond reversal of the norm -
it is we who are observed
through the window by the world.