TALIESIN FRACTALS
1
Nyt o vam a that pan y’m digonat
Not from a mother or a father was I made
The druids know all things are born
From desire and a fear of extinction.
Here I am, beginningless, not born but made,
Unless before the world and before the beginning of the world.
A’m creu a’m creat o naw rith llafanat
And my creation was made for me from nine forms of consistency
I was waiting to be clothed, sound to word,
Word to meaning, meaning to understanding,
Understanding to knowledge, knowledge to wisdom,
Wisdom to poetry, poetry to creation of worlds,
Creation of worlds to fear and desire.
How many souls does the one created consist of?
What animates the articulations of a creature?
O ffrwydd, o ffrwytheu, o ffrwyth Duw dechreu
From a fruit, from fruits, from the fruit of God in the beginning.
Not the seed, not the tree, not the beginning,
Begun from the ripened, time-ripened exudate of the creator.
Not from one, but from many,
Not after but at the start of the beginning.
From the tree of God, from God’s fruit,
From the Garden of Eden was I made.
From the vegetal elements of the world, before the world.
Made by God and by enchanters –
Enchanters chanting sounds, chanting word,
Giving fruit its form, giving God a voice.
2
What he says:
I am not a human.
I was given form with plants,
From fruit, from fruits, from God’s first fruit
(And what was that?).
Made from the elements of the natural world,
From plants, from soil, from water.
I was, yet I continued to be shaped
Or given form, or recreated:
From God’s fruit, from the soil,
Water and plants.
From Math, from Gwydion,
Reared by Eurwys, by Euron,
By Modron, by Math, by Gwydion,
These five enchanters.
Made from within a desert, a fire, a conflagration,
Made before the world was finished.
Brewed, even. The plants collected, the elements combined
With water, the fire of the pot, the fermentation,
Becoming the same but changed.
I fall from the first tree, a fruit of God, ripe and ready.
I melt into earth, become plants, become blossoms, become trees.
All mulched, all matter there is, rotted, fermented, made from that.
And is this ‘I’ one or many?
Singular or compound?
Changed before completion
By enchantments of the five.
Before the world in what should have been,
When there was nothing but fire.
Sacred from the cauldron heated,
Stirred in, changed by fire,
Reared by enchanters,
Made new and new and new again.
Rising from the sullen earth golden-topped,
Golden-browed, filled with voices,
Filled with light.
From the houses of earth, I, We,
Arise. We, Taliesin, a fun guy.
Some. Soma. Filled with exhilaration,
Full, frothing, leaping, loud.
The words come from the deep.
From the dripping dark the waters speak.
As clear as thunder, they will echo
Until they find meaning in minds ablaze.
It is a million voices fractured and combined,
Playing in the light, dreaming in purple night.
The wonders are named and renamed,
Calibrated in wandering souls to measure their worth,
Their awakeness, their clarity.
Dressed in monstrous words
Are the names of being and non-being.
The mediocre can never live forever
Except as soil and falling petals.
3
I, the poet
Who is and is not
And also outside the world
Inhabiting all worlds.
Word warring, slicing meanings.
My spear and shield awen,
My crow awen, my cauldron awen.
From God and also
From the enchanters before creation was.
These words are all lies and all perfect.
They are here to shepherd you
Towards a delightful oblivion,
Towards fire and water and the one tree.
The most holy fruit, the fermented fall
Of exultation beyond meaning.
4
Clarity from confusion.
Not jumping to conclusions.
Floating on the thermals of meaning.
The paths that lead nowhere
Lead everywhere.
And the unexpected provides answers.
Turn away from the problem to find the solution.
The deep world beneath the world:
Everything the same, but shining.
The power of seeing patterns
And of remembering the stories that are used
To make excuses to do the same as before.
5
These bright words:
A skitter rhythmic ricochet
Scattering meanings across centuries.
No weir, no tickle or hook,
No line or net will keep them held for long.
Proud words, free words, unimprisoned,
Validated in memories
Springing out of rushing waters, upstream, upstream,
To seed in still minds,
To become vast again
In distant worlds.
6
Yesterday I was sure of its meaning.
Today I am not certain.
Tomorrow I shall start again
following other threads, other roots
down into the dark soil.
The seeds unfurl though they still
see no light. They taste
many futures and that is enough.
Allowing the breeze to bring its news,
breathing softly, trying
not to possess an outcome.
The wind lifts the smoke upwards,
the edges of the day retreat.
It is in silence the song can be heard.
It builds and dissipates
as clouds do at sunset.
Whole kingdoms dissolve.
Endless blue, then one,
then another star.
–
7
This world is clothed in words.
Shaped by enchanter’s song.
Brought to being and non-being by utterance.
Silence does not dispel it.
There are always echoes,
Always fading recollections
Into the next world.
–
8
Whose voice is this, whose words,
Yours or mine, and who is this I?
That is, and was, and will be?
The wind bends down the trees:
They kneel, they sigh, they dance,
They moan seeking shelter in song.
They can do little else when moved.
Where do the winds arise?
From beyond what horizons?
A word was spoken- the first word –
A little breath, and it has been uttered ever since.
The wind growing stormy – no birds are in the sky.
This powerful song has driven away all other thought.
You kneel and bend and sigh,
What else can you do?
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