Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘yew trees’

The Hollow Yew of Llanfechan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on April 5, 2017| 2 Comments »

2017/04/img_2649.jpg

1
Go down, come down
Through the hollow heart,
The yew of Llanfechan
Peeled away, the long
Sunlight moment
Mesmeric, the voice
Of voices whispered
On green tongues, long
And longing, and full
Of tragedy.

Enclosed, but
Wearing thin,
Boundary still between
Worlds, the boundary
Between times,
Given up to earth,
Food for the
Little things.

That is what the mighty
Always are.
The upright fading away.

Let me bow down,
Bow down to earth
And mulch,
Forgotten in lost
Corners, lost
On a tangent,
The slant of
Trajectories
Towards
The same
Centre.

2
This heart,
A bowl of dust.
These hollowed hills
Scooped out, abraded
By flocked moments,
Voracious, universal.
This pulse, this canopy, this swan,
Arced and spread-winged,
Reflected, shattering rainbows,
A quiver-full of light
And a mumble of story.
We no longer swing the verses,
Though the chorus is our breath itself,
Self-generated, a blueprint, a prayer.

Curtained in cloud and light, the valley floor,
Unfamiliar at this height, all becomes
Mysterious and fading.

The old tree, clasped in itself
Knotted with hymns it knew
Before brick and stone.
Its own Last Trump, its own
Resurrection, the woman in the sun,
Seven bowls and seven seals,
A thundering voice ‘How much longer
Shall we suffer in hunger? How much
Longer shall we suffer in thirst?’

To change shape and, invisible,
To infiltrate the insignificant.
A sermon on patience
And darkness.

2017/04/img_2639.jpg

Read Full Post »

With the Yews of Myddfai

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on October 5, 2014| 3 Comments »

P1100720.JPG

On the edge of the Brecon Beacons in mid Wales, Myddfai has long been associated with traditional herbal medicines. The story goes that a young farmer in the 13th c. was passing by small lake in the mountains above the village and fell in love with a fairy girl, the Lady of the Lake. Their descendents were renowned for centuries as herbalists. The line died out in the 18th century and are buried in Myddfai churchyard.

WITH THE YEWS OF MYDDFAI

Walking amongst the dead,
With the yews of Myddfai,
(And are we not always with them?
The left and the lost,
As they are with us always,
Whispers breathing cool).
Ground ivy sweet underfoot,
Plantain fragrant above their heads,
The soft, springing grasses.

Taken up, become trees,
Corded limb and leaf.
Holly, cherry, elder all
And the certain hope of yew,
Candle eternal, resurrected
On cross-beams of utter time.

Trees of blood, names forgot
Yet the throb of heart and cell
Pushing out from one likeness
Into a congregation of small sacraments,
(A blessing of toes and fingers
And round, pursed mouths,
An O, a cup, a small, red, sweet seed).

Trees of name and trees of memory.
A date of birth and a date of decease,
Only a short, curved line between
To measure each coming and going.
A start and an end,
A retrieval of mythology,
A reinterpretation of dreaming.
Thin lines of light,
Delicate mycelial wanderings,
Sole nutrient of futures
In sunless soil and sinless light.

A tangled commonwealth,
A last, shared supper.
The weeds of healing
Melting and rising upwards.
In late sun, (October now),
The wood is warm to touch.
Take time,
We say,
But they leave time alone
And live beyond our means.
We, with borrowed flesh and borrowed light,
Who give it all back
(Willing or unwilling),
To be born again,
To be built into another time,
Another place.
Vessels pouring into vessels,
A fall into grace.

P1100725.JPG

Read Full Post »

Brecon Cathedral Yew Wood

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 29, 2014| 3 Comments »

IMG_1139.JPG

BRECON CATHEDRAL YEW WOOD

Dappled, the dead sleep
A slow, chimed crumbling.
A choir, a roof, are these yews.
Riven and sundered, tied back and bound,
Reworked, ribbed, buttressed.
They stand between the leaning,
Between the soaring: the lime,
The cedar, archangel sequoia –
All elders singing before the throne.
A hymn of jackdaw and blackbirds,
An antiphon of ivy dust.
Time riding heavenwards by degree,
Folded and sealed,
A shrouded, deeper silence.

—

IMG_1135.JPG

Read Full Post »

Yew Grove at Llanafan Fawr

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 13, 2014| 2 Comments »

IMG_1107.JPG

YEW GROVE AT LLANAFAN FAWR

1
Light sensible, thick as darkness
And light veiled, filtering downwards.

One red cup, one seed dropped,
Rippled out, measured by millenia.
A ring of sinew trunks, weighted, poised.

2
Where the old road
Cups the round, green breast
Of Llanafan Fawr.

Where the quiet mound
Floats above the heads of valley oaks
(Distant voice of rock-sided Chwefri).

Where the dead bask in sun,
Sleep in shade,
Their names carefully chiselled,
Painted, kissed in lichen.

3
Rising up
From the Underworld
Where the dead become stars,
Where bones multiply,
Where dreams are born
And shadows grow their own souls.
There, the umbilical roots
Bind light to darkness
Making song
That wheels this world.

4
Fed by scintillating constellations,
A certain, mutual apotheosis,
A rippling out of layered years
Laid down in sinuous orbits,
A hug of dimensions,
A vessel for longevity, for remaining.
Only holding on.
Only breathing.
A mirror from each metalled yuga,
Withstanding heaven’s gobby adolescence.

5
Three great props to prop the sky.
As the gods choose their own forms
Grown from curse and pleadings,
From a universal need, the deepest science
Of leaning upon
They have measured up,
Filled the matrices,
Solved the quadratic and the algebraic,
Judged the swing of planetary orbit.
Readjustments made, reconfiguring
A weighty gravitation,
Collapse, expand, spin.
(Those three doors all life dances through)

6
Old before the brazen, gaudy eagles
Meticulously trampled lands not theirs
To glut the slovenly cities of the South.

Old before the contrivance of contorted guilt,
The crosses to be borne or cast away,
The ring of truth, the hope of doves.

Old before the King of the North and his kin
Bred saints amongst sacred hills.
Before Dewi and Afan, (who, maybe,
Were as eloquent as uncle Taliesin),
Sheltered wise candles from the wild storms:
The slick guttering stroke of marauding steel,
Thud and groan and a pouring out of life
In a red gush, anguished and final, among the silent trees.

Old as the penetration of water through rock,
The endless drip to sunless oceans below,
Is the strife of men, the lamentation of their women.

Old, and the richest of composts.
The most intricate of tallies,
A long genealogy, a swirl of lusts.
All commingled, compressed, considered,
All fit and meet, an elevated sight,
A blossoming of poison and beauty,
A perfect circle, a sunlit ripple.
One tree is a forest,
One grove a memorial
To these thousand thousand lives,
Drawn up, drawn in,
Held, encompassed.

—-

IMG_1101.JPG

IMG_1102.JPG

Read Full Post »

Yew at Llanymddyfri

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

YEW AT LLANYMDDYFRI

I am a fire banked up.
No loud voice
No chanted, righteous psalms,
No holy threats.
Quietly I suck the dead,
Draw from what they no longer need.
Green leaves and slow, dark sap.
A skein of green dressed in veils of ivy.

Not large, not small,
I go on regarding, regardless.
My hymns are quiet,
A gravity for time and space
To dance around.

Disregard me.
I am as undistinguished
As you shall be
As you fall forgotten
Mixed with mud and misty memories.
But I shall see days you shall never know.

A stone’s throw from eternity’s grey walls.
Lived in by wrens, lived in by blackbirds,
Priest and brown sexton.
Banked up against the long hill,
The green valley cowled and shaded,
A cave for meditations.

IMG_1071.JPG

—

Read Full Post »

The House of Trees (part 4)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 16, 2013| 5 Comments »

CillChroisd2

The House of Trees

4

       Cill Chroisd

 

On the road to Elgol

That dances its way

In the dark and light

Of moving skies.

 

Breathing up and down

Sliding beside loch and ben.

 

Between the green toes

Of Beinn na Caillich –

(she, who, giving birth to the land,

Remains unconcerned

But ever watchful)

 

Beneath the raven’s wing,

Beneath its long, far cry;

Amongst the short grass,

Sheep-cropped and hummocked,

A blanket fit for sleep and dream,

They have placed the corners

Measuring the ordered landscape

Of the dead.

 

Here lies a MacLeod

Under the brown breast

Of Beinn na Caillich.

He has not angels by his head,

Nor angels by his feet,

But four eternal trees –

Green flames of yew –

To shade him from too much sun,

Too much starlight.

 

Four trees

Grown from his bones,

Fed by the exhalation

Of his long sigh in sleep

And promised rest.

 

They will be a shelter

From the four quarter’s winds

That winter howl along

The dark glen.

 

They will be a shelter

For the small birds

Singing him joyful

‘Til his Judgement.

 

A sure roof

Outlasting the crumbling of walls –

The green, sky-stretched,

Wind-hugged branches

To bear him back home.

 

Here he shall have peace.

Peace, but for the hooded crows.

Peace, but for the sheep

Tugging the small, green tumps.

Peace, but for the passing wanderer, curious.

 

They have built for him

A house of earth

For the earth of his body.

They have planted for him

A house of trees,

Seeded from his flesh,

Grown from his sinews

So that he can live for eternity

In holy wood.

They have built for him

A house of song-

The wind in the ivy,

The swan and the curlew-

For his soul to stretch out.

 

Who would not want a mountain

As a headstone?

Without cold in the bones,

A delight to watch for centuries.

Without a watery eye:

The storm winds, a delight.

And to drink the peace

Of the cloud-tangled rushes

In the evening and morning time,

Rippling with diver and otter.

Who would not melt to moorland?

Rich peat mixed with memories

Of the long-gone,

The onward patter of rain.

110RoadToElgol

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: