Our Geography – Pwll Bo
Pwll Bo
It has a new name now.
Only to those who know
is there a hint of something more than this.
Not even in the old language.
Fit for tourists and a simple direction:
Go on and on the winding road past,
straight past Pwllgolchi where the sheep were washed
And the waters slow and tame.
Go on and on and it is the White Bridge now.
Over the roar and tussle of rock and foam,
the screaming rocks, their bare, penitental heads.
The neat, safe bridge, white balustered and grey concrete,
Where the dogwalkers park to wander through
alder column and larch cathedral and birch,
and back again the higher bracken path
with view of slope and arcing hill,
diving into waves of oak and shadow.
No longer a haunt of ghosts and the lost,
no white shift nor silent scream, the bruised skin
and the lead of loss and madness.
No longer the world baring its teeth
And testing your religion.
No longer the long years haunting the impossible crossing,
but a small, white bridge that leads bone still
between here and there.
Not quite have they been banished, the drifting dead,
but swept from sight into the undergrowth
and up the hillside, their voices lost in the water roar.
White Bridge to the Pool of the Ghosts.
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