simonhlilly

DYMA LLANGAMARCH

This rock forehead
Staring into God’s blue eye.

This river wrapped promise.
This precinct pinned against the
Warm breast of wood and slope:
A brooch of brightness.

A way across,
And a way through.

A confluence,
As all names are.

Sometimes easy with itself,
Sometimes crouched and wary.

Crowned with blackbird song
And dancing jackdaws.
Fed with waters, rich and strange.

Overlooked, perhaps, but
It outlasts its saints,

As quiet goodness
often does.

—

The title is in Welsh, meaning ‘This is Llangammarch’. In English, Llangammarch has a double ‘m’, but only one ‘m’ in the Welsh. It is named from the River Cammarch, which here meets the River Irfon, just below the promentory of rock on which the church stands. The old settlement was on the north side of the river, though is now largely on the south bank, under the lee of the wooded slopes of the Epynt escarpment. The area was renowned for its mineral springs, some with high sulphur content, some with high magnesium and barium. For a while, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the area boomed as several spa resorts sprang up fed by the new railways from cities in the south and east. The First World War ended all this and the coastal resorts soon took over .