poetry copyright colin w campbell
Shadow on the Ground
Silent image, hugging contours
with a lonely last embrace.
On a journey, many hours,
meeting landscapes, face to face.
Hard to follow through a window,
harder still to let it go.
Reaching down, a final shadow
on familiar ground below.
Any plane might cast a shadow,
little noticed on the ground.
One-way ticket out of Glasgow
tends to make one look around.
Many others have left Scotland,
gone before in years long past.
Making thoughts of leaving Scotland,
last and last and last and last.
Shadow on the Ground was first accepted for publication online in Firstwriter Magazine
issue 6, 2005. Also accepted for electronic publication in VoicesNet Visions Literary
Journal Issue 36, June 10, 2006. Read on Radio Sarawak Wed 25 Feb 2009. Read at Yunnan
University Frid 3 June 2005.
Scotland, 2004 on a visit to my old hometown of Largs on the Clyde coast.