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Posts Tagged ‘Wales’

Good Friday

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 30, 2018| Leave a Comment »

GOOD FRIDAY

from the mist: the hills.
clouds attempt the memories of things,
but fail and find instead broad brightnesses.

there is birdsong in the valley (may there ever be),
and ravens in the cascading sky.
a wash of calling sheep, heading for food.

we feel the older weaving, thread-worn, familiar,
a whisper of what it was, (though still greater than us).
it is in the blood: this dying and longing and silence,
an intimation of the beyond coming closer,
the hidden web knotted together.

the sure, gnarled fingers of compassion,
patient Mother Spring
and the story of the son.

—

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Cwm Graig Ddu

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2018| 2 Comments »

CWM GRAIG DDU

Yesterday the ravens were dancing.
Now, this east wind has scoured the skies
To a perfect frozen blue.

Dark, bruised by cold,
Cwm Graig Ddu, sunless, looks out,
Dreaming of rivers.
Its sheep: philosophical rocks,
Waiting for Spring.
—

Bitter cold.
Bright sunlight.
Trees dream
In the dark valley.
—

Hours pass.
Gazing out.
Hunting words.

—

Calibration of sorrows –
A mountain view.

—

An empty road
Still finds its destination.
All music sits upon its silence.
A sweet sap comes after winter sleep.
By slow breath the cauldron bubbles.

—

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Rainy Sunday

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 12, 2018| 2 Comments »

RAINY SUNDAY

cloud comes down.
a light rain.
gazing out.

—

tending the fire:
it roars gently in the hearth.
no need for thought.

—

tending the fire.
a bird flies across.
white mind.

—

a bird flies across space
leaving no trace
but in the mind’s eye.

—

nothing to see
beyond the window.
spider scurries
across the sky.

—

low cloud.
spider scurries
across the sky.
distant hills.

—

white mists –
breath of the ancestors
whispering between birdsong.

—

snow banks
on distant slopes:
whiter than the mist,
whiter than the cloud.

—

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A Little Translation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

A LITTLE TRANSLATION
1
Silver lands, wind breathing shivers
raindrops from black branches.
Puddle sky shudders.

These words fade, returning silence.
Raven slow, arcs vast horizons
In her bright, dark eye.

2
Turn over and sleep and
turn again.
Mind dreams on
Weaving its own worlds.
Root chant,
Bird’s feather heart.
Everlasting communion.

3
Wind roars.
Green buds.
The mountains
Full of rain.
There is brightness
In the air.
Hedgerows
Woven with birdsong.

Remembering a bygone tune,
The old man pauses,
Lost in memory,
And then forgetting.

—

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The Roads by Here

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 10, 2018| 5 Comments »

The roads by here drop listless,
Pitted and cracked with the weight of ice and rain.
Pulled down in slow light,
Hedges the colour of old scabs
And the bruised grasses buried deep

Snow on the mountain. Eira ar y mynyddoedd
Dark is the air. Awyr tywydd gyda hi
White the land. Gwlad gwyn erbyn hin.

All day long
Sun and frost
Have fought in fog.
Ice on grass grows
into white air.
Breath billows, the only movement.
A glaze of ice coats the puddled ground.

It thickens now
As dusk begins
Air as sharp as owls
And the blanketing silence

Fold back to silence
The ferment of universal memory
Star-fed, spinning hum
Spine mountain
Where the warm sun shines.

—

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March Morning

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on March 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »

MARCH MORNING

Floating on time
The seconds bear us up
Slow spinning in light
Searching a language to say it
Though nothing can
Break the elastic bonds
Of being and non-being.
Punctuated, memories
Stack up for later.
Folded back on itself,
A dough that rises and expands,
Universal breakfast
Come morning.

—

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The Thrush’s Song

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on February 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

THE THRUSH’S SONG

“I was a droplet in the air.
I was the radiance of starlight.”

I was a morning in late February,
Fresh with moments of green
And a wealth of birdsong.

I was a gradient of light
Sliding on the hillsides;
A calibration of sorrows
On the mountains;
A word somewhere between
Joy and sorrow.

A maker of firelight warmth
And a cup of hot tea,
A conveyance of small wonder
And a hunter of consideration.

The wind is light
And the clouds dissolving in colour.
The ground is waterlogged
And the trees become thirsty.
It is still silent on the road,
The paths still empty.
Their shadows hold winter,
Puddled, ice-blind eyes.

There is nothing that is not ordinary,
Nothing that is not wonderful.
The triple song of the thrush
Sings it all, again and again.
Praise for praise’s sake,
Word on word.

—

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The Corners of Space

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

THE CORNERS OF SPACE

Follow the sun beyond the horizon
And there will never be a sunset,
Never a horizon.

The old poets knew this – that their voice
(River and root of it) runs through distance
And no ends are there to those meanings.
Each sound, a door to deeper dimensions.

(No owls tonight, though a slivered, smiling moon.
Between the song of the pines and the river:
Restless tumbling dreams.)

Here is the vertiginous well of the sky
And its steps, and its chambers.
The view of horizons and their echoes.

(Confusion arises with questions:
Clouds billow and change shape;
Gravity has little hold in dream states
Except by habit.)

Circumference, the vastness of mind,
The corners of space, encompassed
By a single breath,
Dissolves on exhalation.
A rainbow disease brought to a stunning collapse –
Endless blue.

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Unfolded

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2018| 2 Comments »

UNFOLDED
(Out of Taliesin)

I have been in many forms
But come back to this one:
Floating wingspread one,
Weightless and watchful,
A feathered arc, a bowl,
A cup of air brushed in
sunlight, wary, joyful.
(The wind has left a dust
Of snow on the far valley
Side, slate the dark sky
And the hills vanish
Like the living do, into
clouds of drifting whisper).
So easy it is to forget – a wonder
We do not learn it earlier.
And remembering: a dream
Patched from here and there,
The glue of emotion
The glue of regret.
A world unfolded from sound
And holding firm, fast spinning.
A potter’s wheel, potter’s hands.
Hollowed is blessed and so
I am hollowed and void.
Blood and breath, clod and clay –
A holy work to keep it
And let go of it.
(The trees bend and roar,
Their thoughts this droning chord.
A chant to the maker, blameless
Of suffering.)
These poets, suspended, becoming saints,
Hanging from the four directions.
Their parts scattered to make new worlds,
Their words taken literally, or buried,
A bed of seeds for Spring days
To play with.

—

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It is the rocks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 24, 2018| 1 Comment »

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It is the rocks that make the river sing,
The world that gives us song.
Bones creak, branches heavy with snow,
Breath captured must release.
Spring will come.

—

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