Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Haiku, Haiku-ish, landscape, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, spring, Wales on April 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
SPRING SCATTER (haiku-ish)
Moon as bright as morning
burnished by a cold wind.
Mountain river white as clouds.
—
Floating mountain.
Two crows.
Spring sun melts frost.
—
Cold wind.
Bright sunlit air.
These blackthorn days:
Tumbled jewels.
—
Along the lanes,
blackthorn blossom.
On the high hills:
the bones of the snow.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged history, Llanlleonfel church, memorial, Poetry, Wales on April 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
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.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged landscape, meditative mind, Mynydd Epynt, Poetry, Wales on March 20, 2019| 2 Comments »
CALM ABIDING ON WILD PONY MOUNTAIN
Facing the silent mountain
I sit listening to the wind.
Thoughts like streaming clouds
Come and go.
Only the weight of woven sunlight
Keeps me here, shaped by colours,
And the road through the valley
That promises still so much.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged landscape, Mynyddoedd Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, storm, Wales, weather, wind on March 20, 2019| 3 Comments »
STORM PASSING
Sway , as wind makes the grasses.
Here then there (but silence in the soil still).
It, breathing, roars. Tears away what breath there is.
It, moving, alights and passes through all, a sudden thing.
It, breathing, shudders the solid, twists each sound.
The singing fires dance free and the slope of wings as sharp as scythes.
Sedge, winter dry, rattles with a serpent’s hiss.
On tip-toe we scramble homewards, whipped eyes watering.
Such a small thing, this flush of weather. Half a day
Flooded with impecable instants of translucent uncertainty.
And we, made small again and frail by ineffable, invisible airs.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Cambrian Mountains, Poetry, stormy day, Wales, wind, winter still on March 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »
STORM PASSING
Sway , as wind makes the grasses.
Here then there (but silence in the soil still).
It, breathing, roars. Tears away what breath there is.
It, moving, alights and passes through all, a sudden thing.
It, breathing, shudders the solid, twists each sound.
The singing fires dance free and the slope of wings as sharp as scythes.
Sedge, winter dry, rattles with a serpent’s hiss.
On tip-toe we scramble homewards, whipped eyes watering.
Such a small thing this flush of weather. Half a day
Flooded with impecable instants of translucent uncertainty.
And we, made small again and frail by ineffable, invisible airs.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged creation, landscape, luminous, mist, peace, Poetry, time, Wales, winter day on March 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »
LUMINOUS 2
The day has no horizons
aimless we are where we wander.
short hours lost, dressed in silence
free of consequence, free of purpose.
as if the world were just created,
six days gone and the seventh, wondering.
the burden of memory not yet felt,
luminous ghosts of joy in luminous surrender.
and the hum of bees
or distant traffic
or chanting.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ancestors, night, Poetry, stars, Wales, Winter on February 28, 2019| 7 Comments »
NIGHT AIR
This is their hall,
their echoing hall.
Acolyte owls mist and dust the snow flurry
that is an endless decease.
Heat of heart and heat of blood
rises wavering, steams, dissipates.
Cold eyes, lidless, remain.
Smiling, our ancestors by their fires,
looking down to see whatever passes
(the long roads, the short roads
To their welcoming circles).
This is their hall, domed and dark
where the warm soul of breath expires.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art photography, Haiku, Haiku-ish, landscape, landscape photography, Poetry, sequence, snowfall, Wales, white, Winter on February 24, 2019| 2 Comments »
SNOW SEQUENCE
River words turn running slow.
To see, to say, to move on.
A winter’s day has little warmth.
—
A winter’s day has little warmth.
We huddle around our hearts,
Crunch bowed through snow.
—
Crunch bowed through snow
Finding footprints to keep to,
White hollows the slipping lanes.
—
White hollows the slipping lanes.
Lines of hedge float empty
Cold smudges reasons to move.
—
Cold smudges reasons to move.
Time falls in flakes ending all.
Weighted we bob, suddenly uncertain.
—
Suddenly uncertain,
This is not the world we own nor shape.
Even names for things have dissappeared.
—
Even names for things have disappeared.
The river mutters between teeth of ice.
Slick and black the waters smirk.
–
Slick and black the waters smirk.
Glass cold whispers sliding by.
River words turn running slow.
–
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged landscape, landscape photography, pines, Poetry, Wales, Winter on February 13, 2019| 1 Comment »
CHAPEL PINES
Gosen chapel now is grey and silent.
hard to keep warm
without the wrath of God.
filled twice, filled thrice a year
when the dog-tired farmers, or
their small, steadfast wives, turn, turn and
return, to the sleepy earth
they are made from.
jackdaws in the chapel oak
are the black-clad preachers now,
and the line of pines that divide
the living from the dead, and the west wind
that scours the marshy fields,
joining together in dreary, beautiful psalms.
they keep the view open to the empty hills:
the wandering constellations of sheep,
the souls of these departed lovers,
grazing the lovely green.
—
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, cold, darkness, landscape photography, Poetry, snow, stars, stillness, Wales, Winter on February 4, 2019| 1 Comment »
snow night now
Snow now, falling without degrees, silent as night is.
I shall become night, standing still here,
Starfilled and let go of all, dying slowly,
Imperceptibly cooler, waiting small sounds
and sight to clear, the shapes of other’s thoughts
Falling white and falling white
To settle without degrees and blameless.
The words tumble, some mine, some from elsewhere,
Which is which and why distinguish?
The small noises of the night
In snowfall and starlit dark.
The stars, nothing more patient
Nor sorrowful, watching it all blink
And change, blink and vanish,
Blink and sleep.
World’s bones grow cold
So far from fires
So far from fires.
—
