Pwll y Bo, “Pool of the wraith”, is a wooded, rocky cascade of the River Irfon on the road up the Abergwesyn valley, a few miles from where I live. Downstream, stranded now in silence, but once the heart of Llanwrtyd, the old church site of St. David’s on a small spur of hillside around which the ascending road curls. Saint and spirit, a confluence of notions.
PWLL Y BO (1)
Mountain air threads mist in valley sleep.
We dreamless lie, cherishing weight.
Up at Pwyll Bo, I suppose, the lean, green larches
Will stand roaring down the dawn winds.
The oaks, staid grey and still on their slanted hill.
The otter shall sink and roll, melting to water.
Mossed rock wet, endless white the tumble.
Ever hollow spans the spirit’s song, a haunted bridge.
The winding path to delight is to be walked not run.
Time given to sliding slow eyes, side on side,
To stop and to forget.
This breath the church of all gods,
The heart’s Holy Ghost light woven.
Time enough for long blue days
And the dead slowly revolving
On the hillside church
Wriggling back to earth and seed.
Their heads now risen green, unfurled,
A dappled Trump each last and every day.
Unknown things travelling down
Are woven, whirled and worded.
Skein thin spirit clothed and given sight.
A voice, even, from rock and worried water.
Grasped and clothed its essence sings,
The illusory cling of names forgot,
The savoured winding sheet of waves
And pillowed, folded rocks.
It says, it says:
The confluence of all rivers is the ocean.
The confluence of all words is the heart.
Shall it cleave to the warmth of sunlight,
Wood avens and violets on the bank?
Or shall it bend into moonlight,
Emptying all in cool rest, the starlit air?
Or long longing, wait for drifting careless breath
Warm bodies dabbled, absent stares,
To speak heard and unheard,
Noticed yet unrecognised?
