Memories

Erratic

Erratic
Four Elements pp. 156-159

Plucked before my time
by some glacial hand,
that tore me from my land
and deposited me on
this foreign shore.

Long did I languish,
worn slowly down
by wind, rain, ice, snow.
Now I am carved anew
and learning to grow.

The old land rejected me,
wouldn’t let me back.
This land had no choice,
but I found I had lost all
notion of a distinctive voice.

Now I belong nowhere, a stranded
immigrant, I cannot return.
Neither can I call this place home,
and yet I have sent my roots
deep into its landscape.

I have grown into it,
become one with its seasons,
accepting its long hours
of silence, with white snow
falling upon darkening trees.

World Within

World Within
Anam Cara, p. 15

I have rediscovered a world within me,
a secret world where I walked as a child,
a world that nobody else has ever seen.

When I was young, that world absorbed me.
In it, I went round and round on roundabouts,
and travelled high and low on swings and
swing boats, with their rough ropes.

Alas, as always, there were rainy days.
Then the sun would wear his hat but I knew
he would come out later and join my play.

Sometimes, in the summer, thunderstorms
would roll around and rattle our corrugated roof.
Dai Jones’ cows would rush through the field,
seeking shelter from the wind and rain.

In those days, every cloud had a silver lining.
I weathered tough times, waiting patiently
for the sun to return and light up the world.

One day, I don’t remember when, someone,
I don’t know who, slammed the door and shut
me out from that world. I spent my whole life
searching for it. At last, I have found it again.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

White Wolf

White Wolf

The white wolf of winter
exits her den-warmth and
shakes snow from her coat. Flakes
fly, whitening the world.

She points her nose skywards,
clears her throat, howls until
cold winds blow their chorus
of crystals, crunchy crisp.

We cower behind wooden walls,
peer out through frosted glass.
The white wolf draws near and she huffs
and she puffs until door frames rattle.

The snow drifts climb higher,
blotting out the light. Night
falls, an all-embracing
Arctic night of endless
snow snakes slithering on
ice-bound, frost-glass highways,
side roads and city streets.

Outside, in the street lights’
flicker, snow flies gather.
Thicker than summer moths,
they drop to the ground, form
ever-deepening drifts.

Our dreams become nightmares:
endless, sleepless nights, filled
with the white wolf’s winter
call for snow and even more snow.

Click here to hear Roger’s reading.

Heart and Hearth

Heart and Hearth

I remember the old coal fires in Swansea.
My grandmother’s house in the Hafod,
with a hearth separate from the kitchen.
The hearth held a huge cast iron fire-place
where cookpots and kettles hung
 or nestled into smouldering coals.

My grandfather’s house in Brynmill,
had a magic fireplace. Banked in before bed,
it gave warmth and light all through the night.
Warmth, comfort, the family gathered,
the wisdom of the old shared with the young,
traditional tales and songs passed down.

Everybody was welcome and each one
had a special spot reserved around the fire.

Comment:

I have been revising this poem, shortening it, and changing it very gently. Funny how the old days come back and dance before us, like the flames dance on the coals, as the old ghosts walk now upon the logs.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Questions

Questions
Four Elements, p. 137

After my mother died,
I lit a candle in every church,
a real bees’ wax candle,
not those tiny electric lights
that glow for a little while,
when you insert money
in the insatiable slot.

Like the minuterie
on each landing of a Parisian
staircase, it gives enough light for
a quick prayer, or a very short
moment or two of silence.

Where does the light go
when the electricity switches off?
Where does the flame go
when the candle is snuffed?
Where did my mother go
when her light went out?

One day, but not too soon, I hope,
I will have to follow her and find
the answers to all of my questions.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Hearth and Soul

Hearth and Soul

The kitchen – hearth and soul of the house. Here we gather, sit around the table and talk our hearts out. But here, in Island View, we have a kitchen, a gathering, but no hearth, and hence no real heart around which the household revolves.

In spite of that, old habits die hard. I remember the old coal fires in Swansea. My grandmother’s house in the Hafod, with a kitchen in a separate room from the stove, with a huge cast iron fire-place where cookpots and kettles could be hung or nestled into the coals. My grandfather’s house in Brynmill, where kitchen and hearth were separated, but the fire-place still held its magic. Banked in at night, those fires gave warmth and light ar hyd a nos and then they we resurrected the next morning.

We have a woodstove here in Island View, but we rarely light it as the fine particles make breathing difficult after a while. We keep it for emergencies. This winter we lit it when the temperatures dropped to -40C, with the wind chill factor, and heat pump and electric furnace needed assistance.

Warmth, comfort, the family gathered, the wisdom of the old folks shared with the young, and the passing on of traditional melodies. All the old memories and thoughts, the wishes and desires, the hiraeth too, handed down, from old to young. Everybody was welcome and everyone had his or her special place.

Such memories tug at the heart strings – hearth strings. Anyone who shares them with me will know what I mean.

Swansea

Swansea

To be Welsh in Swansea is to know each stop on the Mumbles Railway: the Slip, Singleton, Blackpill, the Mayals, West Cross, Oystermouth, the Mumbles Pier. It’s to remember that the single lines turn double by Green’s ice-cream stall, down by the Recreation Ground, where the trams fall silent, like dinosaurs, and wait, without grunting, for one to pass the other. It’s to read the family names on the War Memorial on the Prom. It’s to visit Frank Brangwyn in the Patti Pavilion and the Brangwyn Hall. It’s to talk to the old men playing bowls in Victoria Park. It’s to know that starfish stretch like a mysterious constellation, at low tide, when the fishnets  glow with gold and silver, and the banana boats bob in the bay, waiting to enter harbour, and the young boys dive from the concrete pipes without worrying about pollution.  But when the tide turns, the Mumbles Railway has been sold to a Texan, the brown and yellow busses no longer run to Pyle Corner, Bishopston, Pennard, Rhossili, sweet names of sand and tide, where my father’s ghost still fishes for salmon bass, casting its lines at the waves as they walk wet footprints up the beach to break down the sand-castle walls I built to last forever at Brandy Cove and by the Slip on Swansea sands.

Click here to listen to Roger’s reading on Anchor.

On Being Welsh – Dydd Dewi Sant

On Being Welsh – Dydd Dewi Sant

On being Welsh
in a land ruled by the English

 I am the all-seeing eyes at the tip of Worm’s Head.
I am the teeth of the rocks at Rhossili.

I am the blackness in Pwll Ddu pool
when the sea-swells suck the stranger
in and out, sanding his bones.

Song pulled taut from a dark Welsh lung,
I am the memories of Silure and beast
mingled in a Gower Cave.

Tamer of aurox, hunter of deer, caretaker of coracle,
fisher of salmon on the Abertawe tide,
I am the weaver of rhinoceros wool.

I am the minority, persecuted for my faith,
for my language, for my sex,
for the coal-dark of my thoughts.

I am the bard whose harp, strung like a bow,
will sing your death with music of arrows
from the wet Welsh woods.

I am the barb that sticks in your throat
from the dark worded ambush of my song.

On Being Welsh – short stories – Amazon and Cyberwit

On Being Welsh – poems included in my selected poems (1979-2009)

Cherry always listened to my readings

Click here to here Roger’s reading on Anchor
– On Being Welsh

Goodbye

Goodbye

It is never easy to say Goodbye. Some goodbyes are easier than others. Some are indeed difficult. “In my end is my beginning and my beginning is in my end.” Conscious goodbyes are one thing. We say farewell knowing we will never be back that we will never see each other again. These are the hard ones.

I stood in the bar of El Rincon, in Avila, at 6:00 am, waiting for the taxi that would take me to Madrid and away for the last time. I was planning to return the following year and then it hit me – this was indeed my last goodbye and I would never return to that place. A tidal wave of emotion swept over me and I felt a deep, earthy sorrow – the sorrow of permanent loss.

It was matched on two other occasions. The first occurred when I drove to the sea shore of my childhood in Wales, with my mother’s ashes in the back seat and strict instructions on how and where to scatter them. Walking away was one of the most difficult things I ever did. Even more difficult was leaving my father, a widower now, in his bed, and saying that goodbye. It was not the final goodbye, but I knew I would never see him again, in that house, under those circumstances.

I cried in the taxi, all the way to the railway station. Great, heart-rending sobs that tore me apart, body and soul. The spill over from my nostrils reached the floor of the cab, a long, thick spider-thread of deep-seated despair, because I knew my life had changed forever, and the support on which I had always counted would no longer be there.

People and pets – both are difficult. Holding the paw of a beloved cat, while the vet slips the needle in, and the companion of ten, fifteen years, drifts quietly to sleep. Or watching a faithful dog, slipping slowly downhill, and knowing that someday, soon, the decision must be made, the dark deed done. The knowledge that one relieves suffering and brings an easy release does not decrease the heartfelt pain of that last goodbye.

I used to visit the Sappers Club in Toronto. In the basement of that establishment I discovered a wealth of photographs from WWI. The old men would lead me downstairs and, through thick salt tears, explain what each photo meant to them. Round about midnight, a group of them would stand before a photo called Goodbye Old Friend. It depicted a shell-shocked, broken horse, with a pistol held to its head. The men, they explained, had volunteered for war, and knew all about its suffering. The animals were innocent, and knew not the reason why. Ah, ending the sufferings of the innocent, human or beast, that is, perhaps, the saddest farewell, for some, but not for others.

We each will hold a private moment within our own hands and minds. To share or not to share – that is the question, for each of us – poor creatures, as Dylan Thomas says, born to die.

Broken Laws and Broken Rules

Broken Laws and Broken Rules

Rugby Football is a wonderful game. It has laws, not rules, and yes, like almost every rugby player I have known, I have broken the laws, and got away with it. How? Stepping off-side, handling the ball in the ruck (old laws), blocking and obstructing ‘accidentally on purpose’. I asked one of my instructors on a national coaching coach whether we should be coaching school age players to play outside the laws. His reply was most instructive. “The laws – there’s what the law book says, what the referee is calling on the day, and what you can get away with. You get away with what you can.” He was a national level coach – so much for the laws of rugby.

There is a difference between the rule of law, specific laws, and rules. Life in various boarding schools, twelve years, from age six to eighteen, taught me that rules were made to be broken. No talking after lights out. Whisper away – just don’t let yourself be heard by the prefects or monitors listening outside the dormitory door. No hands in trouser pockets. So – stick them in your coat pockets. No smoking – well I didn’t smoke, never have. But I know many who did but very few who got caught. No talking in prep – so I taught myself and a couple of friends basic sign language – the alphabet mainly. You may not place butter on your bread – so put the butter on the bread and turn it upside down when you eat. And no, that wasn’t me. No reading in the dormitory after lights out – so, go to the toilet, with a book in your pajamas and sit there and read Lady Chatterley’s Lover for as long as you want. You may only wear ties of a quiet color. So, wear a V-neck sweater and make sure the nude lady on your quietly colored tie cannot be seen by the masters. It is forbidden to enter a public house. So, sit outside in the garden. It is forbidden to drink beer. So, order some cider – it was the West Country, after all. And remember that rules, especially school rules, are often asinine, ie -stupid, like an ass – and made to be broken.

“The law is an ass is a derisive expression said when the the rigid application of the letter of the law is seen to be contrary to common sense.” Well, that is quite explicit, as is this – “This proverbial expression is of English origin and the ass being referred to here is the English colloquial name for a donkey, not the American ‘ass’, which we will leave behind us at this point. Donkeys have a somewhat unjustified reputation for obstinance and stupidity that has given us the adjective ‘asinine’. It is the stupidly rigid application of the law that this phrase calls into question.” Both quotes come from the following site – and I am indebted to the writers thereof – https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-ass.html

It is well worthwhile to remember, not just the law, but the spirit of the law. I can honestly say that I have never broken a law or a rule in such a way as to cause someone else to get hurt, physically or emotionally. Play up, play up, and play life’s game – ludum ludite – I have always done so – and always have I stayed within the spirit of rule or law.