When we pass the old birch tree
Murphy jumps up on the bench
and sits (briefly) – then noisily
crunches two biscuits: one for him,
one for Jack. In leaving he lifts
an irreverent leg against the trunk –
and that is just fine. Because this
isn’t a wake – ‘tis a celebration.
Takes only ten minutes
of laboured breath
to reach that point.
A practised hand
with a casual flick
of the wrist unrolls
the carpet of long lake,
wide pastures, houses,
the high mountains.
Rest a moment.
Take it in –
and tackle the descent
while the hand,
unseen, rolls it all up
for safekeeping.
I have not seen the mists rise on Cadair Idris –
but travelled the road that climbs from Dolwyddelan
to fall into the vast desolation of Blaenau Ffestiniog;
found rest in the silent graveyard of Merthyr Isiw
above the valley of the Grwyne Fawr; and marvelled
at the perfection of crooked places in Cwmyoy.
I have sat at the old quarry of Mynydd Llangatwg
to gaze at the chequered world and let the whisper,
the murmur, the susurration of shifting vowels
and age-old consonants bewitch me. Crug Hywel,
Aberdyfi, Machynlledd, Ceredigion, Ynys Môn –
until in my mind the mists rose on Cadair Idris.
One day everyone went away –
let the narrow lane fall into disrepair
and left behind the lighthouse
and all the browns,
greens and blues in the world
for the wind, the clouds and the sun
to play with.
It rolls up like a marble
over the grey wasteland of the moon.
And Frank Borman, commander of Apollo 8,
first man in outer space, the man who says
that no, he didn’t tell his family what it was like
up there when he came back, he was too busy
catching up on the nitty-gritties of family life;
the astronaut who says that weightlessness
is boring, and puking in outer space the same
it is at home: uncomfortable; the space hero
who’s never seen and can’t recall the title
of Space Odyssey; who says the Star Trek motto
To boldly go where no man’s gone before
does nothing for him – the most prosaic man
to leave the soil of this blue planet says:
Hand me a roll of color quick, would you?
A beautiful blue marble, swirls of ochre and white,
it rolls up over the grey wasteland of the moon.
We wake up on it every morning.
Somebody hand me a roll of colour. Quick.
The wagtails anyway looked lively
and the freshly shorn sheep were bleating.
The place was deserted. The monks long gone;
the car park empty; the hotel closed.
Only a very old couple were limping
in the skeleton of Llanthony Priory:
the walking wounded…
I put a spring in my step; felt a twinge
in my back, a cold wind on my neck.
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near?
Ah –
but wasn’t it lovely –
No hermit now at Patrishow
above the valley of the Grwyne Fawr.
The gifts left at the Holy Well
forlorn; the grey church silent.
Snail shells lie scattered on a stone.
The thrush who guards this place
has found a use for an old grave.
He hops from stone to branch, serene.
He knows we are just passing.
Across the fields to Llangattock.
At the top of the hill
the latch clangs back on the metal gate.
The canal sleeps on.
Two boats, barely moving
on still brown water.
A hiker; exchange of a nod.
Perfect reflections of foliage.
Unseen flutter of wings;
the call of a wood pigeon.
Fat stone bridges.
The sound of my footsteps.
An endless sea of ancient oak trees –
swell upon swell it runs to the horizon,
the rasp of a million cicadas a second tide
in the almost night air. Three stars are out.
In the middle distance a village, its lights
hovering between waking and sleep.
Beyond, a faint glow parts earth and sky.
Inklings of civilisation; Siena, or Florence.
I sit quite still
on the weathered wooden bench
as the caramel coloured chicks
stalk closer.
The sharp tugging of beaks
at tender shoots of grass,
the homely hencoop smell –
and I’m five years old and adrift
in summer, giddy, cut loose
from my moorings,
lost but wrapped safe
in solicitous clucking –
The chicks nestle near
in the last rays of the low sun;
the hen, wary, patrols –
and I hold Grandpa’s hand
as we go and lift warm eggs
from their beds of straw.
whypoetry 