LLANLLEONFEL STONE ( our geography)
There is a stone there, fixed there
(though only stubborn fools would try to move it),
that speaks when the light falls right from the small aisle windows.
Not yet worn smooth but mute enough to be overlooked by most,
as the owls were in the rafters.
As old as the crows in the yew grove dark and silent.
As old as the bitter spring that bubbles from the hillside
As old as the view perched high, a respite from season’s battles.
Hidden is Llanlleonfel, hidden in trees, hidden its path,
forgotten its signs, next to the farmyard,
a barn storing memories and lowing souls.
The words slope down, they fall down, bow down.
Sorrowful words in proud stone, like the world itself, like the world.
Hanging on by a thread to meaning and remembering,
a small rippling on the glass hard surface of winter light
long shadows cast between sunlit hills.
Two names named, so well known, now forgotten,
Waiting waiting tight in their shrouds for the day to waken,
To be judged and born again as heroes that they were.
Left here stranded as the roar of history passes by,
Nothing here now but sheep tugging at the hillside grasses.
Here lies Iorwerth and Rhiwallon,
(Yet they are all dissolved now to earth and water, breath and light),
Tightly wrapped in the world’s dreaming shroud,
As they ever have been, as we ever have been,
Swaddled between sunset and sunrise,
Growing and diminishing with shadow fall.
Worn down and away to whispers
to ripples, to silence.
—
simonhlilly 