Category Archives: Places

October 29, 2022

Cadair Idris

By hjs

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.



Cadair Idris read by Les Jones

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October 29, 2022

Rattray Head

By hjs

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.


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February 10, 2022

Earth Rising

By hjs

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.

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November 2, 2019

Llanthony

By hjs

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 –

 

i_Llanthony (3)

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September 4, 2019

Patrishow

By hjs

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.

 

h_Patrishow (37)

 

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September 4, 2019

Sunday morning at the canal

By hjs

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.

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September 22, 2018

Monteraponi

By hjs

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.

1 Comment   |  tags: , | posted in All poems, Holiday snaps, Places

November 2, 2017

Chickentime

By hjs

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.

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October 18, 2017

On Washington Crossing the Delaware

By hjs

Not today, though,
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
not today he isn’t.

The entrance to the room
is barricaded with plywood permitting
only a partial glimpse

of the General: upstanding, unfazed
by the turbulent ice floes,
unwavering gaze fixed on, well,

plywood. The impeccable turnout,
in democratically dun-coloured mantle
(lined with scarlet),

thrown in dramatic folds
over shoulders bearing the weight
of a nascent nation –

all for nothing today. He shall not
reach the far shore, shall not
trounce the Hessian mercenaries;

and this great nation shall never,
now, be birthed – and not
just this room, no, the entire museum,

Fifth Avenue, all of Manhattan
declared closed
for the duration; New York roped off,

the Empire State Building un-built,
stone by stone, steel girders
dismantled, the Brooklyn Bridge

melted down and Brooklyn cut loose
to drift out to sea.
By and by the prairie schooners

will return from the West (California
now only a word
whispered in feverish dreams

and no more), and from a non-place
not called Washington,
in a porticoed, pillared white house

that never was, a last tweet proclaims
the fading usurper’s futile fury –
then silence. Peace.

Washington Crossing the Delaware

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October 18, 2017

Ellis Island

By hjs

Sofia, age 23, from Siberia:
processed in Ellis Island, 1921;
destination Gackle, North Dakota.

You have to wonder.

Gackle, North Dakota:
founded in 1904;
located at 46°37′38″N, 99°8′36″W:

not even the middle of nowhere.

Population (1920): 424.
Population (1950): 606.
Population (2016): 291:

not exactly Boomtown ND.

Things to do in Gackle ND:
ˮGackle is home
to the Gackle Public Libraryˮ –

that is about the extent of it.

They must be doing
an awful lot of reading
up there in Gackle, ND.

And you have to wonder:

Did she find her home there?
Was it worth the loss of loved ones,
the heartbreak of exile, the long journey

all the way from Siberia – to Gackle, ND.

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