Wales

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus!

Happy St. David’s Day

Spring in Wales.

Spring in Wales

               Spring in Wales comes very quickly.  Sometimes, if you blink twice, it has gone again. But usually, you take a step outside the door one morning and suddenly there are daffodils everywhere. And they all come so early, crowding together like party-goers, tossing their heads in the bright yellow sunshine, and the whole world green and yellow, like the round yellow eye of this first blackbird, whistling on the garage roof or on a branch of the apple tree which is suddenly covered with a warm green fuzz of threatening leaf …

               … all so early, I say, and the countryside yellow with daffodils by March the First, St. David’s Day, our Dewi Sant, and especially in the Castle Grounds and Blackweir gardens, where the daffs grow wild and cluster beneath the trees, like huge, enthusiastic, rugby crowds, clapping and waving at every passing moment, and all the leaves on all the trees are just starting to sprout and there’s a pale, watery sun, but the wind is still fresh with the daffodils all tossing their heads in sprightly dance …

               … and you can walk the dog in Blackweir Gardens without a winter coat and without your wellington boots, though it’s as well to wear thick socks and good, stout shoes, just in case there are still puddles and the autumn leaves that fell last year may still be wet and soggy and slippery after their winter out in the rain and snow and the Feeder Brook which used to feed the Old Castle Moat, drained now, and no longer a stock pond for trout and carp,  is running strongly and quite fast, all the way down from Taffs Well … and the gurgling weir is beside you as you walk, with the crunch of the gravel beneath your feet, the song birds starting to sing, the nesting birds pairing up and starting to nest, and always the daffodils, the Taffodils as they sometimes call them in Cardiff, Caer Dydd, as they write on the busses, with the river Taff flowing there, just above you, as you climb the embankment and the River Taff flows beneath you now, all black and swift and deep and swollen with the end of the winter rains … and the Taff cradles as it flows the finest of fine coal dust and carries it down to the sea … and the fish and eels are born eyeless, so the fishermen say, as they measure out the length of the whoppers that got away, because nothing can be seen in the River Taff when it’s as black as that … and in places you can walk on it, they say, it’s so laden with coal dust from the worked out seams of the nearby Rhondda, and what use are eyes in a river where the coal dust is impenetrable and the water’s like a dense black stew …

               … and spring is Easter and Easter is when the Barbarians Rugby Football Club make their annual Easter Tour of Wales and the southern part of Wales is rugby mad on Good Friday, and we have just been released from the prison camps of our schools for the Easter Holidays, and in our new found freedom we go to Penarth where the Sea-Siders, as we call them, play against the Baa-Baas, as we call them, and we park the car at the top of the hill near the centre of Penarth, and we walk and half run to the playing fields down at the bottom of the hill, squeeze ourselves like toothpaste, in through the gates, squeeze ourselves small in the gathering crowd and there they are, the mighty Barbarians, 14 internationals from England, Ireland, Scotland, and occasionally France or South Africa,  and standing firm against them, the men from Penarth, 15 average tiny Welshmen, perennial losers, doomed to their annual failure, but not today, as Bernie Templeman, “Slogger” to his friends and intimates, kicks a penalty and drops a goal, and the giants are shunted all round the park and almost off the scoreboard … and we shout ourselves hoarse and it’s Penarth 6 and the Barbarians 3 … and all that international strength and might vanishes, Goliath felled by David on a damp Good Friday night … in the spring time, in my childhood, in Wales …

               … and on Easter Saturday, we stay in Cardiff … and we have tickets for the stand where you don’t have to stand at all, but can actually sit in luxury … and my friend’s dad has a friend who has friends who have season tickets … but they have just won the football pools and they have left Wales and are travelling around the world on a cruise ship, and they have left us their tickets, their wonderful tickets in the stands, and we sit on the half way line and watch this magnificent game where they, the Barbarians, have fourteen internationals and a school boy who will one day be an international, but we have fifteen internationals because this is Cardiff … the best club side in the world … and this is the Capital of Wales … and we are playing at Cardiff Arms Park, at the ground where my father played and my grandfather before him, and we are watching history, and family history, and everyone who plays for Cardiff also plays eventually for Wales, and my father came here, like my grandfather, as a visitor, not part of the home team, and Swansea were the champions back then, not Cardiff, and my grandfather played for Swansea, way before the First World War, and my dad …

               …  well, I don’t know much about him and his rugby because he changed from rugby to soccer because my mother’s family, who all had English and Scottish blood, thought rugby was dangerous and they wanted him to play soccer, so he did, and he broke his ankle playing soccer and never played sports that well again, though he was a great sportsman, more than 6 foot tall, yet I take after my mother and I’m tiny like her, and “much better to have had a girl, with him as small as he is” some neighbours said and others said “Don’t worry; he’ll grow!” but I never did and so I became a runner not a rugger, but my father’s side of the family could never understand why I wasn’t out there, like my father and my grandfather and “A good little ‘un is just as good as a good big ‘un” they used to tell me, so I played occasionally, especially in the spring, and there they were, giants at six and seven foot tall, and there I was a dwarf, a pigmy, at five foot tall, and it’s lies they tell you sometimes, myths and lies, because five foot can never match six or seven in spite of everything they say about a good little ’un … but this is Cardiff and Cardiff always wins and win we do … and we all go home happy …

               … but on the morning of Easter Sunday we set  out for Swansea and the bungalow in Bishopston, where we will spend the night, and we have our knapsacks on our backs and in our knapsacks we have our sandwiches and our snack bars and our bathing trunks, and we’re all ready for that first Easter visit to the beach … and we catch the train at Cardiff General and go from Cardiff General to Swansea High Street, and when we’re in Swansea we run to the bus station and catch the next bus, the next brown and yellow Swan bus, and it takes us out along the Mumbles Road, and up the Mayals, and over Bishopston Common, which is still open land and not the least bit enclosed, and there are skylarks rising early in the morning, and cows, and ponies, and sheep, and sometimes they are found wandering on the road that crosses the common, but not today … and we leave the common and rush through the narrow lanes, at breakneck speed, and the trees lash the bus windows with their branches, inches from our faces, and we duck as the leaves smack the glass in front of us, even though we know the windows are there and the leaves can’t touch us … and at Pyle Corner, we leave the bus and it’s down through the lanes, and it’s out to the bungalow which hasn’t been opened yet, and we’re the first there, so it’s light a fire and warm the place up, and dry the mattresses, and get the damp out of the one bed we’ll sleep in, all of us, and then it’s down to the hard stone beach at Pwll Ddu, and we wander on the shore fully dressed and dare each other to swim as we wander across the pebbles and yes, we decide to do it, to strip, and the wind turns us blue and there’s nobody else there, just us, and it’s Easter Sunday, and the sea-gulls are daring us to take off all our clothes and bathe naked in the naked sea beneath a naked, cloudless sky …

               … and it’s not as warm as we remembered it from last year, and the wind whips our naked flesh and turns it blue and we run up and down trying to keep warm and then we plunge into the icy water and the water must be a degree or two warmer than the land, but it’s still cold in the water and even colder when we come out … and I remember now that my grandfather was a member of the Swansea Polar Bear Club and swam, each Christmas, in the docks at Swansea and also on new Year’s Day and he must have been mad, even if he did join a club of equal nut cases, ‘cos we’re freezing, I tell you, and this is Easter Sunday, not New Year’s Day, though the year is new enough for us and the cycle of the seasons is just beginning, and the old year ends with winter and the new year starts with Easter, and this ritual turning blue as though we were all daubed and tattooed with woad, and the annual, ritual dip lasts for about two seconds, two seconds of total immersion, like baptism, with your hair wet or it doesn’t count and “Watch out!” there’s someone coming down the cliff path and we’re no longer the only ones on this beach and we leap into each other’s clothes just to have something on when the others arrive, whoever they are, these neighbours, these nosy neighbours are … and “Skinny dipping. were you?” they say, “We’ll tell your ma, we will.” “You can’t she’s in Cardiff!” “Well we’ll tell your grandma then, she’s still in Swansea, I saw her at the market yesterday, and she’ll tan your backsides — should be ashamed of yourselves, bathing naked on Easter Sunday.”  “Aw, don’t tell gran; remember: you were young once!” “Yes! I was; but I didn’t run naked on the beach on Easter Sunday!” …

               … and it’s back to the bungalow with everything soon forgotten and the bungalow is warmer now, from the fire and the woodstove, and you know automatically where everything is, the oil lamps, and the wood fire stove, but there’s no electricity and we have forgotten to get water and unless we drink rainwater from the barrel it’s down to the end of the field, with its single tap that feeds and waters the whole field, 26 summer houses and only three of them occupied, two by people who live there all year round, and one by us, now, at Easter, and the neighbours drop in to see we are all right … and we talk and they help us to trim the wicks and set the lights and one of the neighbours comes in and helps us to make a pot of stew on the wood stove, a Welsh stew with potatoes, and cabbage, and onions, and carrots, and a bit of meat they lend us so we will not be tempted to use the piece of old dry smoked bacon left over from last summer, and hanging still from the rafters, out of reach of the mice and the rats who have taken back their empire and scuffle and scrimmage each night, like Barbarians, over the roof and through the walls … and we can hear them at midnight, as they travel the pathways they have built around us …


               … and we can also hear the cows, out in the field all night, as they rub their bodies up and down against the bungalow walls, and there are fresh cow pats where they have sought human company and the warmth of the fire because it’s cold at night even though it’s spring and when Monday dawns, first  it’s breakfast and Brandy Cove, where the beach has changed shape after the winter storms … and all the paths are slightly different, down from the cliffs to the sand, and we are not the first, for there are new paths and footprints and one of our neighbours is there in the cove with his canoe which he paddles all winter, every day, at full tide, in Brandy Cove at first, then out round the headlands to Caswell and Langland, Pwll Ddu and Three Cliffs and we don’t know now that one day he’ll go out on that tide, but he’ll never come back, and they’ll hold a funeral for him, but they’ll never bury him, because they’ll never find his body … and this year, again, he’s all sun tanned and brown and doesn’t look at all like one of us, we white skinned boys, with our sunless winter skins not yet exposed to wind and sand save for that one appearance yesterday that blued us as if we were dyed in woad,  as if we were ancient British warriors and the old Celtic Race was reborn in tattoo and blue … and fearsome we are, we warriors, we blue men, marching up Snowdon with our woad on, never minding if we’re rained or snowed on, and slap us on the chest and we are all bowmen they say, and the spring is here and the summer campaigns can be planned, but first, it’s back to the bungalow, finish up the food, clear everything away, make sure the fires are all out, lock all the doors, and off down the lane, we go to catch the bus back into town, the brown and yellow bus that was once driven by my great-grandfather, not in bus form, but he put a plank in the back of his truck and he gave people lifts, and this was the first informal transport system, ages and ages ago, long before the First World War, and everyone knew him and everyone knows me, but me I have left … and I don’t know anyone any more … but they all know all about me …
              
               … and we get off the bus at the Swansea Recreation Ground and we walk to St. Helen’s for the game, because today Swansea play the Barbarians and my uncle is there and he used to play for Swansea and he’s in his usual place … we know just where to find him … and we stand by him and talk to him and everyone is wearing something white today, because Swansea are the Swans when they play soccer and the All Whites when they play rugby and Cardiff play in Cambridge Blue and Black and I cannot remember the colours worn by Penarth, because we only go there once a year to watch them and nobody in the family ever played for them …

               … and Swansea is great because the stand is low and players can kick the ball over the stand and then the little boys, which is what we are in the eyes of the grown ups, though we think are big and tall and Celtic Warriors, quite capable of bathing at Pwll Ddu on Easter Sunday, with nothing on, which the grown ups would never think of doing, well, we little boys are told to run and get the balls which have been kicked over the grandstand out into the street where the Mumbles Railway still runs, right beside the Cline Valley Line, and all the traffic is stopped because the balls are rolling around and the boys are chasing them and whenever the grown men get tired of playing and need a breather, why, one of them kicks the ball over the pavilion roof and I can remember in the cricket season when a ball was hit over the pavilion roof and it landed in a coal truck that was passing on the railway line and it travelled all the way up to North Wales where it was discovered, lying on the coal, and the grown ups all said that we boys had stolen the ball, until it was discovered, a week later lying on the coal … and I can’t remember whether Swansea won or lost, but I think they won, because I don’t think the Barbarians won anything in Wales that year, and that night after the game it was back to High Street Station and back up to Cardiff General on the train, and the next day was Easter Tuesday ….

               …. and the holidays are almost over … but on Easter Tuesday, the Barbarians play Newport in Newport at Rodney Parade … and nobody in the family likes Newport, because the people from Newport are neither English nor Welsh and they change allegiance and go with whoever’s winning, England or Wales, and they move in and out of Wales, playing for England when the Welsh don’t want them and they can’t get a game with our team … and we don’t like that …  so nobody trusts them and you can see people from Newport playing on the English side, in white, with a red rose on their shirts … but Ken Jones wouldn’t do that … and he’s from Newport … and he’s fast, very fast, and he’s got an Olympic bronze medal for sprinting, and the crowd all sing the Skye Boat Song, except the words are different and  they sing “Speed, bonny boat, like Ken Jones on the wing, onward to score a try!”

               … and although we’re meant to support Ken Jones and the Newport team, we secretly support the Barbarians, but not too loudly, because there are some big, and I mean big, Newport supporters close by us, so we don’t make too much noise … and I can’t remember that game either because Rodney Parade isn’t very nice and nobody from my family would ever think of playing for them …

               … and Wales, as I remember it, was still very tribal … and people in Newport, Cas Newydd,  live on the border, and by the border, and we’re never sure which side of the border they’re fighting on, and that’s totally prejudiced and unfair, and politically incorrect … but that’s also tribal warfare, so there! … and it’s perfectly fair to support the Barbarians against Newport because in the folk lore, of that part of Wales, at that time, well, the people of Newport were Barbarians … and they didn’t know whether they were English or Welsh … and they were mixed breeds, mongrels, Heinz 57’s … and they kept the pubs open on Sundays too …

               … ah well, most of those things happened a long time ago and they’re all forgotten now, the rivalries, the family feuds, but some things you never forget … like Easter and the Barbarians Tour of Wales and the daffodils in the Castle Grounds and Roath Park in Spring and Blackweir Gardens … and suddenly, so suddenly, Easter Tuesday was over … and it was back to school … and the holidays were done … and Easter was done … and those are my memories of Spring … in Wales … where the blackbirds still whistle and sing on the garage roof … and all the world is yellow with gorse and sunshine and all those Taffodils …

Rage, Rage 18

Rage, Rage
18


I nod off again and dream
of a summer beach,
burning sand, tide way out,
sparkling waves, clouds moving,
inaudible, as they drift by.

I dream of my beginning
and find a forlorn formlessness
that sought the solace of sound
only to discover waves and wind
as I drifted on an amniotic sea.

The wind of change has blown.
I awake and pick up my book.

Voltaire –
“Si jeunesse savait,
si vieillesse pouvait.”

“If youth knew,
if age were able to.”

Comment:

The wind of change has blown and, by all accounts, it is still blowing. A Nor’ Easter here, swinging down from the Arctic and bringing us cold weather, ice, and more snow. Driving isn’t too bad, for the roads are cleared regularly, especially when schools are in. Most enterprises have cleaned, salted, and sanded their premises. Some haven’t. Yesterday, it took two people to move my shopping cart from the shop to the car, a matter of about thirty yards. The wind was so strong. It tussled and tugged, drove me where I didn’t want to go, and two people stepped in to help me. Then I discovered an undug doorway. I parked my car at a sharp upward angle, on the snow. A man offered me his arm. I said no, but he stood beside me, hands held out to help, just in case. Leaving that same shop, I was accompanied by a young lady who insisted on carrying my bags, taking my arm, and leading me to my car. The dangers of falling on down hill ice were even greater than going uphill.

I dream of my beginning, more and more often nowadays and now-a-nights. I know, spell check underlined that word. A neologism, not a proper word. But I like it, for though I dream by day, nodding suddenly into a shallow sleep, it is by night that I really do my dreaming.

At night, I find I can roam a world that has become hostile in the light of day. I can, and do, dream of my childhood on the Gower Peninsula. The fields are still there. My grandmother walks among the bluebells, and together we tell the time by the old dandelion clock. The larks still rise on Bishopston Common and Bluebells, Cowslips, and Primroses still hide beneath the trees. The sands at Brandy Cove are still clean. There is no pollution in my dreams and no oilers clear their tanks in the pristine waters of the Severn Estuary. There is no industrial haze and, on a clear day, I can still see, from the steps of the bungalow, Ilfracombe, across the bay.

And the people – my family and friends are still there. My uncles and aunts, my cousins, all young still, my parents and my grandparents … and all my dogs return, one by one, from their canine adventures. At night the cows can be heard crunching grass, and wheezing in my dreams. I met one, once, on a night trip to the outhouse – we had no indoor plumbing. And, on one memorable night, I stepped into a wet, warm cow patty, left like an anti-personal landmine, just outside the back door. I still shiver as I think of that warmth creeping up between my toes. No amount of wiping has ever really removed it. It haunts like the ghosts of summers past that drift at midnight round my room. waiting to be plucked from the air.

Rage, Rage 2 & 3


Rage, Rage
2

These problems start the day
you realize you are alone.
Your beloved goes away,
for a holiday,
to be with your daughter
and grandchild.

Now the house and the cat
are yours, and yours alone.
No problem you say and
everyone believes you.

You jumped in the car,
drove daughter, and child,
holidays done,
to the airport.

Your beloved went with them,
her holiday about to begin.
And that’s when it all began.

3

When I come back home
from leaving them at the airport,
the front door stands open.

I thought I had closed it
when we left.
I tip-toe in and call out
“Is anybody there?”

Echo answers me –
‘… there, there, there …”

Commentary:

Raymond Guy LeBlanc, one of my favorite Acadian poets, published his poetry book, Cri de Terre, in 1972. My painter friend Moo, who also likes Acadian poetry, borrowed the title and changed it slightly when he painted this painting – Cri de Coeur. Earth Cry / Heart Cry.
What is all creativity, visual of verbal, but a cry from the land or a cry from the heart? Sometimes it is more than a cry – it becomes a clarion call, a shout out, a calling out.

So many of us are born with creativity in our hearts. So few of us carry that creativity, be it verbal or visual, into the adult world, a world that all too often grinds us down and sifts us out. We become grey people in grey clothing sitting behind grey desks beneath artificial lighting, doing grey jobs that slowly turn us into nine to five (or longer) dusts.

Moo has promised me a series of red paintings for this sequence. We shall see how he does. Red for anger, red for age, a red flag for danger, a red rag to wave at the raging bull of life, to provoke it, then bring it under control.

Nadolig Llawen – Welsh for Have a Joyous Festive Season. You can add other languages, as you wish. But above all remember Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s words – “Life is a dream and dreams are nothing but dreams.” One day, we shall all wake up. Artists and dreamers, grey ghosts and people of straw and dust.


Sheep

Sheep

Wales is whales (with an aitch) to my daughter who has only been there once on holiday, very young, to see her grandparents, a grim old man and a wrinkled woman. They wrapped her in a shawl and hugged her till she cried herself to sleep suffocating in a straitjacket of warm Welsh wool. So how do I explain the sheep? They are everywhere, I say, on lawns and in gardens. I once knew a man whose every prize tulip was devoured by a sheep, a single sheep who sneaked into the garden the day he left the gate ajar. They get everywhere, I say, everywhere. Why, I remember five sheep riding in a truck on the coal train leering like tourists travelling God knows where bleating fiercely as they went by. In Wales, I say, sheep are magic. When you travel to London on the train, just before you leave Wales at Severn Tunnel Junction, you must lean out of the carriage window and say “Good morning, Mister Sheep!” And if that sheep looks up, your every wish will be granted. And look at that poster on the wall: a hillside of white on green, and every sheep as still as a stone, and each white stone a roche moutonnée.

Commentary:

Sheep in Wales and deer in Canada. And here is a little group wandering around in our garden. So how do I explain the deer? They are everywhere, I say, on lawns and in gardens. I once knew a man whose every green leafed plant was devoured by a herd of deer, who sneaked into the garden the day he left the gate ajar. They get everywhere, I say, everywhere. And everybody loves them, because the heart beats a little faster when you see them walk by.

Carved in Stone 59 & 60

Carved in Stone
59

St. David of Wales once said,
“Do ye the little things in life.” 

I do, and I wander
along the banks of the River Taff,
admiring how wild daffodils
flourish each spring, in Wales.

Young, I run on the beaches,
Brandy Cove, Pwll Ddu, Langland,
Caswell, Swansea Bay,
and, as I write these words,
I hear my footsteps
echoing back through time.

Baudelaire’s words ring in my mind,
“Creativity is nothing more nor less
than childhood recovered at will.”

Or, as Pablo Picasso said,
“I have spent my life
learning to see, paint,
and write again, like a child.”

And on and on I go –
child-hood, youth, maturity, age,
then back to my second childhood,
when I can recreate
that youthful world
in all its joyous beauty.

60

Does life flows through me,
like water in a clepsydra?

Does it flicker like a candle
guttering on a church altar?

Is it circular, like a sundial,
or the Roman numerals
on the face of the clock?

Am I just flesh and blood,
doomed to blossom and flourish,
then wither and perish?

Or will some small part of me
linger on, an unchained melody,
with all my memories slowly erased.

Commentary:

Moo’s daffodils are painted and potted, not growing wild at all. They are still the national flower of Wales and they still grow wild, in the spring, in Blackweir Gardens and beside Roath Park Lake. At least, I hope they do. I haven’t been back to check for 37 years now. Maybe things have changed, and the daffodils have gone the way of the sky lark, the cuckoo, the cowslips, and the bluebells. I wonder if the foxes still wear gloves? Let me know if you know the answer to that one. Just write “I do” on the back of the usual postcard. And you know what to do with it.

As for me, I am moving into my second childhood and, in may ways it is so much better than my first one. Here, I am free to look back on my life, to harvest my memories, to paint what I want – well, what Moo wants, anyway – and to think my own thoughts. Thank heavens Moo doesn’t think for me, though he does get his fingers covered in paint when he reads my mind and puts paintbrush to postcard, and designs his designs.

I feel very sorry for Moo. I guess he never had a childhood, so therefore, ipso facto, he can never have a second one. How much he is missing even he doesn’t know. How could he? Mysterious Moo – I like that idea. Sólo el misterio nos hace vivir, sólo el misterio. Only the mystery keeps us alive, only the mystery. And if you guessed that the author was Federico García Lorca, then you can award yourself a glow of satisfaction, for I have no prizes to hand around.

But hold on a moment, that was the title of one of Lorca’s drawings, so he was the artist, yes, but maybe not the author. Picky, picky nit-picky! Another of the joys of second childhood – annoyingly spotting the minor slips of other second-childhood thinkers – and never, never ever admit the mistakes you might, or might not make, are your own. Blame someone else. There’s always somebody out there whether to own up to your errors, especially if the price is right.

Carved in Stone 45

Carved in Stone

45

No candles burned at that altar.
A single match, let alone
a candle flame,
would spell the end,
if gas leaked from the seam.

Only the canaries,
confined in their cages,
sang songs.

Doomed,
like the blind pit ponies,
never to see the light of day,
they lived out their lives
down there.

So many died underground,
unable to get out,
buried alive,
before they were even dead.

Commentary:

“Only the canaries, confined in their cages, sang songs.” Yet the miners often sang, in their own cages, as they were lowered down from pit-head to seam. It wasn’t the songs that worried them, it was the silence. The men could rarely smell the gas, but when the canary stopped singing and toppled from its perch, then the men knew that bad news hounded their heels. As for the pit ponies, how did one get them out? Some of those mines, had been dug 5,000 feet deep and two or three miles out to sea. A pit pony should never be confused with a sea horse, and as for the white horses that surge in the waves in so many paintings, well, pit ponies need to be laundered before they can compete.

“Good-bye old friend.” I remember the photo from WWI of the dying horse, surrounded by crying men. The suffering of the animals is what men feared and pitied most. The animals are innocent. They do not ask to be sent underground, nor to be sent to war. They have no choice, poor things. So sad, when a dear, four-footed friend dies, so far away from the light of the sun. As for the men, there were no “safe rooms”, those reinforced rooms filled with food and water, not in the early days, anyway. A camaraderie, yes, but not many people went down to the mines willingly. Rita MacNeil summed it all up in her wonderful song that begins ‘It’s a working man I am.” – How many people, if they ever saw the sun, would ever go back underground again.”

Carved in Stone 44

Carved in Stone
44

The old man, withered,
last house on the left,
leaning on his garden wall,
coughing, spitting up
coal dust and blood.

He’s not old, when you get close,
just grown old, underground,
where emphysema
and pneumoconiosis
devour men and boys.

He spits on the side walk.
Mining souvenirs,
Max Boyce calls them,
and they appear
every time the young man,
turned suddenly old,
starts to cough.

He can’t walk far,
wearing carpet slippers,
soft and furry,
just leans on the wall.

He fell, or was pushed,
into the trap at an early age,
when the coal seams
had grown so thin,
that only a small boy
could kneel before
the coal black altar
of the underground god
and, with a pick and shovel,
he learned to carve and shape
the long, slow death
contained in those seams.

Commentary

Moo’s painting, Coal Face, adorns the front cover of Carved in Stone, Chronotopos II. Coal Face is not the denigration of Black Face, white men pretending to be black by dyeing their faces, although they have some similarities. In Welsh Mining, the coal face is where the men used to dig when, with their shovel and their pick and their little lamp and wick, they knelt to dig out the coal. Knelt, because there was no standing room, deep down underground. Then, when the seams grew thinner, and the men could no longer reach them, the young boys were sent underground.

A day underground left men and boys with coal dust seamed into their bodies, especially their hands and their faces. Hence the triple meaning of black face – where the coal is dug, what men and boys looked like after a day’s work, and the blackening of their faces by white men, for the fun of it.

Faces are one thing, coal dust in the lungs is another. The result – emphysema and pneumoconiosis devour men and boys. Black lung, some call it. “And every time he coughs, he gets a mining souvenir” – a black spot coughed up on the sidewalk – Max Boyce.

Child labor, minimum wage, living wage, work that kills, slowly and silently, – what can I say? Forgive me, for I can say no more.

Clepsydra 28 & 29

28

… diagnosed
     with a terminal illness
          called life
               I know it will end
                    in death

I have seen many
     pass that way
          two-legged humans
               four-legged friends
                    and none have come back

I recall
     holding the dog’s shaved paw
          while the vet slipped
               that last redeeming needle
                    into the exposed vein

the dog’s eyes
     pleaded for release
          her tongue licked my hand
               oh so trusting
                    even at that
                         for me
                              so bitter end

and did the poor dog know
     what was coming
          did she live her life
               as I have led mine
                    waiting for that last word
                         to be spoken
                              the last order given …

29

… two of us
     me and my death
          walking side by side
               everywhere
                    sharing the same bed
                         sleeping between
                              the same sheets

I wonder if
     we dream
          the same dreams

my death
     how would I greet him
          when he came
               as executioner
                    not friend

I re-create him as a man
     or as a dark angel
          with all-comforting wings

is he open-eyed,
          while I am blindfolded
               not knowing the way
                    afraid of falling

this death
     is it cruelty
          or merely love               

the path is ahead is new
     and totally unknown …

Commentary:

Many of the images in these two pieces are exercises in intertextual examples, Stanza 29 in particular, drawn from the Neo-Stoicism of Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645). His advice, set out in poem after poem, is to embrace death before it comes. Prepare for it, mentally, and be aware that it is the natural end of life. As Dylan Thomas also writes, “Every morning when I wake, oh Lord this little prayer I make, that thou wilt keep thy watchful eye on all poor creatures born to die.” The Dunvant Male Voice Choir gives us this version of it. Remember to turn your sound on! I like this version, not just for the music, but also for the views over one of my favorite childhood beaches, Rhossili and the Worm’s Head, not far from my home in Gower.

As I grow older and creakier, as my ailments accumulate, one by one, so I realize that indeed I have been “diagnosed with a terminal illness called life.” It’s funny to think of life as a terminal ailment. “Take two Tylenol and when you wake up tomorrow morning you’ll be feeling much better.” And yes, like every sane person “I know it [this terminal ailment] will end in death.” So, don’t be sad. Carpe Diem – seize each day and enjoy every one of them to the best of your ability. Remember the inscription on the Roman Sundial – horas non numero nisi serenas – I count only the happy hours. Whatever you do, have no regrets. If you do have some, make your peace with them now – or as soon as you possibly can. And, when the call comes, go willingly. Step with pride and joy onto that new and unknown path that will lead you to an eternity of joy, acceptance, and love.
                   

The Screws

The Screws

There is no science to sciatica,
just a series of sensations
most of them involving pain.

I don’t know how or when it comes,
but one day, it knocks on your door
and makes you clutch back and buttock.

It’s like a hawk at the bird feeder,
flown in from nowhere to shriek
and shred, unawares, one small bird.

Was it the flannel I dropped yesterday
when showering?  I stooped to pick it up,
lunged forward and, was that it?

The pain came later. It kept me awake
all night, my worst nightmare.
No comfort anywhere. An endless

wriggling and every movement a knife
blade stabbing at my buttock and groping
its slow, painful way down my leg.

The screws, my grandfather called it,
a metal screw screwed into his leg,
leaving him limp and limping.

I googled it today, sciatica, and they
suggested an ice pad for twenty minutes,
repeated twenty minutes later.

“Yes,” I muttered, “yes” and found
in the fridge the ice pack we used
to use in our Coleman’s cooler.

My beloved helped me undo my pants.
“This,” she said, “will be icing on the cake.”
“No,” I said, “it will be icing on the ache.”

Tomorrow, I will call the pyro-quack-tor.
She will bend me to her will, straighten
my back, cure the pain, set me right again,
provided she doesn’t read this post
and will permit me to enter her domain.

Commentary:

Moo doesn’t paint pain, even though it occasionally emerges in his paintings. This painting of his is called Grey Day and I guess a Grey Day is rather like a Blue, Blue Day, something to be avoided, because you feel like running away. And that’s the problem with “The Screws” – it’s hard to face the pain when it’s behind you, unless you are a contortionist and can twist and twirl and see yourself in the mirror. I suppose another solution is to have eyes in the back of your head, but not everyone is that gifted.

As for the pyro-quack-tor, my apologies, Chiropractor, mine is excellent. I limp into her office, crawl onto the medical bed, and then, thirty minutes later, I hop off it like a man reborn, and skip down the corridor, waving my sticks and grinning as if I were a Gorilla in heat. Oh dear, not the sort of condition in which one should drive the zoo bus!

As for my joke – “This,” she said, “will be icing on the cake.” “No,” I said, “it will be icing on the ache!” This takes me back to my old school days – Aix-les-Bains / Aches and Pains. I remember one of my school friends going to Baden-Baden for his summer holiday. A double-barreled name, wow, very foreign. He asked me where I had been and I replied “Cardiff-Cardiff – this is Cardiff.” They used the English version back in those days, not the Welsh one – “Caer Dydd – Caer Dydd.” Doesn’t sound quite the same in Welsh. And how about Cas Newydd – Cas Newydd [Newport] or Pen y Bont – Pen y Bont [Bridgend]. And let’s not get into Llanfair.p.g – Lanfair.p.g – [Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch – Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch].

Try saying that one twice in quick succession. You’ll be sitting in the railway station a long time, just waiting to find out where you are. That, of course, is if trains still run to Llanfair p. g. “Gentlemen will please refrain from …. ” and if you can finish that little ditty off, in public, you have more courage than I do! Besides which, my voice broke long ago, and I haven’t mended it yet!

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?

Right now, I am quite interested in (re-) learning the Welsh Language. Although I was born in Wales, I was never allowed to speak Welsh at home and my parents sent me to schools in which Welsh was never seen nor heard, let alone taught. That didn’t stop me from hearing out on the streets, reading it on the street signs, or visiting places whose names were only available in Welsh, or an Anglicized form of Welsh.

I am no longer an assiduous student of languages, but I get a Welsh Word a day by e-mail, and each word comes with an explanation of meaning and extended meanings. I also receive the words’ pronunciation and its phonetic changes (something peculiar to Welsh – they come in written form and can be quite complicated). Useful sentences are added – not long, but 3-4 seconds, repeatable ad infinitum, by reliable Welsh speakers, who often offer the variant pronunciations not only of North and South Wales but of other regions as well.

A great deal of linguistic and cultural history is wrapped up in language and the origins of the word are analyzed – sometimes going back to Indo-European, proto-Welsh, Medieval forms, and modern changes to the language. Emphasis is also placed on the survival of Welsh and its preservation, in written form, in Y Beibl Cymraeg, The Bible in Welsh. This fixed the language and helped enormously in its preservation.

I am also interested in Welsh Songs and Hymns. I already know most of the tunes having sung them in English during my childhood. Now I am learning them in Welsh and am currently working on the words to Calon Lan, one of my favorite hymn tunes. So, there you are. A new start at a very advanced age. A return to the past and an investment in the unknown future!