A grey shade in the cottage shadows

a paw lick of sinuous silence

a tail flick of smoke

a pounce on time's toll

Like a smoke devil escaped the chimney

she inhabits the lounge at night

never settling

she drifts across the hearth

Like the umbral weight of her past

she settles beyond my sight

I sense only the leak

of light left by her passing

Like th...

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someone’s forgotten cottage

walking in the woods

I discovered

an old deserted cottage

weeds and thicket grew all around

the windows were gone

old curtains blew in the

breeze seeming to enjoy their

almost freedom

old chairs sitting in front

of the cottage wasting away

in the rain sun and snow

if I look hard enough might

I get a glimpse...

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The trees still sentinel stood

their green leaves whispering

rustling gently in the wood

in the same soft breeze

and I know some summer birds

sang in their canopy

a requiem without words

'neath the same blue sky

that through every passing year

quietly watched over me

safe within Ceredig's sphere

It has been too long a time

since our firs...

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In the inky winter darkness

A rough track from the lane

Leads upward onto the mountain:

                A small glimmer hints at life

                and we wonder where we are being led.

Out of the blackness, a dark shape shows in the slight mist

                The lights in a window flicker dimly yellow

                and the smell of peat smoke drifts down in the still ai...

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This old farm cottage of mine

keeps all my years safe

for it knows my secret ways

and remembers

There are shadows in the shadows

but in some rooms

my sons have hidden smiles

to lead me in

There is more solitude indoors

but here and there

she has retained a past caress

to warm me

The old mirror we found at market

still retains her ghost

which...

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Much more than half my life ago

Some chance led us to this place;

Now, my heart is caught and held

By the peace of its earth and space.

Some while past, when first she left me

I could not make my soul adjust

But cached it safe within the plot

Beside her memory and her mortal dust.

And as the family aged and spread

My lonely tenancy grew content

Past spectres...

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COTTAGE

We drive past a cottage in the country

with its quaint decorative bricks

coloured and weathered by age.

The east wall overlooks an overgrown field

with three huge windows hung with old curtains

hiding a burning oil lamp.

This small cottage is two centuries old

and everyone has lived here

from old Victorian families to a modern eighties wri...

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