LLYM AWEL. Verse 4. Improvisations.
Oer gwely pisscaud ugkisscaud iaen;
Cul hit, caun barywhaud;
Birr diuedit, guit gvyrhaud.
“Fishes’ cold bed, ice sheet a shelter;
Thin stag, bearded grass;
Short day’s end, trees bent.”
1
Cold world.
Sheet ice
A shelter for fish.
2
Ice sheets:
A shelter for fish.
This cold world.
3
Cold world, below ice
The slow fishes shelter.
Gaunt and haggard
Is the stag stumbling thin
Amongst tough tufts,
The grass tussocks stubble.
Day ends sharply.
Short the light
Slewed to darkness.
Not heat nor light enough,
The trees tired
And weep bent.
4
No delight the meagre light
Cropped sunlight,
A short curtail
Sudden day’s ending.
5
Sheet of ice:
At least a cold shelter,
A cold bed for fish,
Safe and slow
Beneath a sleep drift,
A flick, a dark, viscous world.
Above, we turn grey,
Bent thin and fade.
No light,
Heavy the bowed trees
Bent boughs
Thin branches bob
And the stag,still,
Gaunt in grey grasses.
6
No heart to linger on
Bent trees at day’s end.
Stuttered the stag, shrugged thin,
Here and there
Between stubbled grey grasses.
No heart, the trees bent over.
7
No heart left,
The dark trees bend heavy, bowed down.
The matted grasses,
Neither food nor bed,
The thin stag wanders through a starved,
Sudden end to the day.
8
Starved, the thin day fails fast.
No heart, the trees bow heavy.
Grey, stubbled grasses,
No food, nor shelter-
The thin stag stands lost
At failing light.
At least the fish beneath the ice
Find shelter, a cold bed
Of sorts.
9
Cold bed.
Day dims.
Under ice, the river flows.
Cold bed, slow fishes shelter.
Cold bed, but not for the thin stag.
Grey the grasses, matted wan.
Day light gutters,
No heart, trees bend down.
10
Thinned streams divided
A guttering light
Sound of water under ice,
A cold bed laid over all.
Ice sheet, a withering away.
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Llym awel. Verse 5 improvisations.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged action, ancient Welsh verse, art, block print design, commentary, improvisations, landscape, peace, Poetry, snow, the world, Wales, war, Welsh language, Winter on February 11, 2015| 4 Comments »
LLYM AWEL verse 5 Improvisations.
Ottid eiry, guin y cnes;
Nid a kedwir oè neges;
Oer llinneu, eu llyu heb tes.
“Falls the snow, a white covering;
Warriors shun their tasks.
Cold are the lakes, their colour without warmth.”
Each line ends with a long hissing sibilance, the fall of snow, the melt as cold hits warm. The slightly longer last line elaborates the terse imagery and is a lack, draining motion and warmth from the reader’s mind.
The description of ‘warriors’ could be ironic. How strong and brave are they really, who refuse to go out in the snow? Or, in another view, the snow can vanquish even the bold warrior with its implacable purpose.
—
So falls and falls the snow.
White covers all, all senses white.
No colour for the sight,
No sound nor note to the ear,
All feeling numbed, no warmth here for heart.
The stalwart shrink, the warriors shirk,
The brave turn away, tasks undone.
Huddled small to the fire, faces inward.
For the lakes stretch vast and cold.
Their colour is death and grey pallor,
A wan weight the white drift sinks to.
Extirpated, extinguished, cold on cold.
Drained is the heat of war,
We are rendered aimless,
Lost to thoughtless staring peace.
We fall to not doing,
A sin for man whose fuse
Runs short and hot.
Severed, spun back, reeled in.
Conquered by an easy drift
And silent fall –
A world unbudged,
Resolute in is.
A cold refusal.
A cold covering.
—
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