THE CLOUD
The cloud is on the hill.
Words will come.
What the stark trees say.
What the rivers say.
A wood pigeon
welcomes the warm rain.
I have been away,
but returned to this silence
where the words are old
and make themselves.
—
Posts Tagged ‘Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains’
The Cloud
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, landscape, language, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, nature, Poetry, silence, Wales on February 2, 2020| 1 Comment »
Dhrupad 24 ( New Year)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, dhrupad, landscape, landscape photography, music, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, rain, song, time, Winter on January 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »
DHRUPAD 24 (New Year) 10.1.2020
Slow, slow now, slow time uncertain
Slow as honey slow it is unfolded
The paths untrod, the ways clouded
The roads silver, the roads brown
The roads puddled poured into the hills.
The days slow, unnumbered
The days unencumbered, weighed in
Silence. Slow slow the revolutions
Of the red kite, the wheeling, returning
Circling in slow light in slow light
And the sun low and slow looking
Looking for a new name a new name,
And the air leafless, the land leafless
Something something on the tip of its tongue
A new name, a new name, a path
A new way and the small birds brown
And the small birds red and blue and brown
Pecking looking for a new name.
And all the dreams a-slumber
And all the days a-slumber
And all the seeds and the leafless air
And the falling rain dreaming and sleeping
A small new name, a new name
And the sparrows shuffling in the eaves
And the gutter rivers singing, chanting
Murmuring, whispering, breathing, sighing
A new name a new name. Slow, slow the days
Slow the days now, time as thick as honey drips
Pools and falls and collects time taking shape
Shape taking space space taking voice voice
Murmuring a dream here, a dream here a new
Name a new name a name a new name, slow.
—
Day Dissolving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Autumn, consciousness, Haiku, Haiku-ish, landscape, landscape photography, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, rain, Wales, weather on January 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »
DAY DISSOLVING
Falling waters,
thread white,
tumbling.
.
from that small distance,
the wheeling raven,
soundless.
.
So woven together
are the layers of the day:
a plaid of wind ripples the lake surface,
as if it were about to say something.
.
we shall dissolve
from light
into light.
.
slowly, slowly
down the side of Y Garn
roll clouds
mixed with sunlight.
.
the view
slides sideways
and is erased.
there is a new silence
that comes
just before the rain.
.
this season-
a balance point
clustered at branch tips.
.
we shall dissolve
from light
into light.
.
on dark smudged slopes,
the shout
of purple heathers.
a scree of broken moments,
small enough
to commit to memory.
.
falling waters
woven together.
moments such as these
make and melt worlds.
.
we shall dissolve
from light
into light.
—
Awen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, awen, bardic, consciousness, dream, landscape, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, photography, Poetry, Taliesin, Wales, Winter on December 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »
AWEN
Awen in the deep floating night.
Awen in the river darkness
Awen in the drops of rain
and the wordless cool vessel of being.
Awen in the scent of wood smoke
and between the lights and between the shadows.
The seesaw of the world,
this fragile weight of balanced moments
haunted by what has gone and seeded by thought
not yet flowered, not yet fruited.
The seed within the cell,
within the roots of blood
and the roads of time.
We are within. We are within.
The awen, our eternal passing breath.
—-
Shadows
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ancestors, art, Autumn, landscape, landscape photography, language, memory, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, nature, Poetry, time, Wales on December 20, 2019| 3 Comments »
SHADOWS
These lines – the chiselled shadows of words.
Consonants moth-whispered, vowels, lichen-grown.
.
A sunlit porch and laughter.
.
Light swings round the mountain
throwing a cooling shadow
across wood and field.
.
Ghosts do not tip-toe here.
As if they own the place, as if they always have,
Squeezing us between regret and reminiscence,
stained by poetry, small life blooming
on cold fallen hearths.
.
Their lilt of names and
who lived where
and who they loved
and who they hated,
whose sheep on which pasture,
whose son left and lost in another war,
whose daughter run off to a bigger life.
.
Pipesmoke and murmurs,
paraffin and oiled rags.
.
The long light stretches between October trees.
In the cities the streetlights flicker on.
On the farms ashes raked,
Cold stoves chivied back to life.
Small lives shadowed by greater things.
.
The chink of tools, the warm scent of sawdust.
.
A gentle downward slope into night.
—
Restless
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, Autumn, consciousness, landscape, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry on December 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »
RESTLESS
This mountain sails through its weather
just as it moves through the centuries.
Magnanimous, it shelters all under its shadow.
Infinitely patient, it welcomes all,
Folding their tired dust into that long gaze.
The mountain, settled in its own weight
Breathes whispering streams and roots.
In the garden a robin sings in light rain.
The autumn winds curl the edges of leaves.
Dogs bark, uneasy from their white walled farms.
—
The Towers of Summer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hills, landscape, light, Llyn Berwyn, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, rain, summer, Wales on November 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »
THE TOWERS OF SUMMER
clouds roll
mixed with sunlight
slowly down
the side of Y Garn Dwad.
the hay is in now
so let it rain a warm rain.
now, now, everything green
reaches upward in one great exhale.
the towers of summer stretch out, bow down.
there is thunder
in the distance, so they say,
and the rivers will soon be filled again.
the surface of Llyn Berwyn though,
shall not be troubled for long:
it will return to its quiet reflection
of hills and cloud,
the brown trout
hardly noticing
a world
that cannot decide
between this and that.
held firm it is, unperturbed,
the lake that lies
in earth’s firm
folded hands.
—
John Price ‘Beulah’
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, choirs, hymns, John Price ‘Beulah’, landscape photography, music, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, Wales on November 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
JOHN PRICE ‘BEULAH’
Between heaven and earth
John Price, there, was a blackbird before rain,
a song thrush in the evening.
He kept to small lanes
and taught others his delight
at the end of a hard day.
Carpenter, son of a carpenter,
between the rolling roads and rising views,
between Llangammarch and Beulah,
he measured with a clear eye
the mortice and tenon of his rhymes,
turning the tune, tapping home the notes.
His voice heard mellifluous
by the hills and rivers,
by the gathered singing poor,
by maid and shepherd,
by schoolchildren and labourers.
To sing in chains
is to watch the chains
dissolve.
—
John Price ‘Beulah’ was born in Llangammarch. He learned his music from a couple of skilled local music teachers, particularly the ‘sol fa’ systems of notating music. Apart from a couple of years in America, where quite a lot of his music was published, he spent his life as an estate carpenter, teaching music and local choirs around the Irfon valley in his spare time. He was a prolific and influential hymn writer in the early 20th century, and also wrote many popular songs. His work did much to promote local choirs, so central to the characher of Welsh rural life.
Green Rock
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Haiku, Haiku-ish, landscape, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, photography, Poetry, time, Wales, water on October 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »
GREEN ROCK
Green rock, black root
time is the river
that shapes this world.
–
Green rock, black root
sentience emerges
from realising relationship.
–
Green rock, black root
life is born from the seed
of sullen gods who found love.
–
Green rock, black root
this world, so full of sorrow,
this world, so full of bliss.
–
The familiar will fall away,
as leaves before the autumn wind,
as leaves before winter.
—
Dhrupad 22 (empty)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Autumn, landscape, landscape photography, migration, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, nature, Poetry, seasons, swallows, time, Wales on October 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »
DHRUPAD 22 (empty)
Empty,
emptied the skies,
unwoven by soaring diving swallows suddenly not there
suddenly silent as the still silvered edged trees,
dusted time-dusted, picked out in the
more slanted light suddenly now.
The clouds pouring in now pouring in the winds.
Still warm the sun still warm
though the nights grow cool now.
The days are set,
the days are settled,
they nestle down on quietened fields
in the quiet ripening
fields where the slow pheasants pause
and pick and move on.
There will be the
wheeling words of red kites soon and buzzards soon
their own spells their own
summoning autumn songs
high in the blue and dazzling dazzling heights of
tumbled skies
and the grain nodding heavy
and the hazels winking
and the ash
trees longing to let go,
to let go.
—
simonhlilly 