Walking along my favourite local route.  An old railway track – post-industrial,

abandoned and overgrown, but still indelibly human-made.  Cutting and bridge, a levelled

track-bed.

And when I dream

I dream I can fly.

The track passes under a busy trunk road; a concrete bridge, hard, austere and coldly

beautiful in its simple form.

My wings are golden,

Yellow like the dawn

A suitable canvas then for local street artists, none of them with any formal training, but

each successfully creating work that unites the natural and the constructed world.  A

sudden splash of light, colour and vibrancy amid a dank liminal space; a jolt to prompt the

walker from a sleepwalk of footfalls into a new and different perception of the landscape.

Fearless, I beat my wings

Against the unyielding glass.

All images – Bobby Seal

Poem – extract from Butterfly in a Jar by Bobby Seal