BORDER BLUES
All along the border the winds blow
Eastward from Wales, and the rivers flow
Eastward from Wales with the roads and the railways,
Reversing the path of the old migrations.
And the winds say, It is April, bringing scents
Of dead heroes and saints.
But the rivers are surely with brown water
Running amok, and the men to tame them
Are walking the streets of a far town.
Spring is here and the birds are singing;
Spring is here and the bells are ringing
In country churches, but not for a bride.
The sexton breaks the unleavened earth
Over the grave.
Are there none to marry?
There is still an Olwen teasing a smile
Of bright flowers out of the grass,
Olwen in nylons. Quick, quick,
Marry her someone. But Arthur leers
And turns again to the cramped kitchen
Where the old mother sits with her sons and daughters
At the round table. Ysbaddaden Penkawr's
Cunning was childish measured with hers.
*
I was going up the road and Beuno besides me
Talking in Latin and old Welsh,
When a volley of voices struck us; I turned,
But Beuno had vanished, and in his place
There stood the ladies from the council houses:
Blue eyes and Birmingham yellow
Hair, and the ritual murder of vowels.
Excuse me, I said, I have an appointment
On the high moors; it's the first of May
And I must go the ways of my fathers
Despite the loneli|you might say rudeness.
Sheep song round me in the strong light;
The ancient traffic of glad birds
Returning to breed in the green sphagnum|
What am I doing up here alone
But paying homage to a bleak, stone
Monument to an evicted people?
Go back, go back; from the rough heather
The grouse repels me, and with slow step
I turn to go, but down not back.
*
Eryr Pengwern,penngarn llwyt heno...
We still come in by the Welsh gate, but it's a long way
To Shrewsbury now from the Welsh border.
There's the train, of course, but I like the buses;
We go each Christmas to the pantomime:
It was eThe Babesf this year, all about nature.
On the way back, when we reached the hills\
All black they were with a trimming of stars\
Some of the old ones got sentimental,
Singing Pantycelyn; but we soon drowned them;
It's funny, these new turns are easy to learn.
We reached home at last, but diawl! I was tired.
And to think that my grand-dad walked it each year,
Scythe on shoulder to mow the hay,
And his own waiting when he got back.
*
Mi sydd fachgen ifanc,ffol,
Yn byw yn ol fy ffansi.
Riding on a tractor,
Whistling tunes
From the world's dance-halls;
Dreaming of the girl, Ceridwen,
With the red lips,
And red nails.
Coming in late,
Rising early
To flog the carcase
Of the brute earth;
A lad of the 'ffties,
Gay, tough,
I sit, as my fathers have done,
In the back pews on Sundays
And have fun.
*
Going by the long way round the hedges;
Speaking to no one, looking north
At every corner, she comes from the wise man,
Five lengths of yarn from palm to elbow
Wound round the throat, then measured again
Till the yarn shrinks, a cure for jaundice.
Hush, not a word. When we've finished milking
And the stars are quiet, we'll get out the car
And go to Llangurig; the mare's bewithched
Down in the pasture, letting feg
Tarnish the mirror of bright grass.
*
Six drops in a bottle,
And an old rhyme
Scratched on a slate
With stone pencil:
Abracadabra,
Count three, count nine;
Bury it in your neighbour's field
At bed-time.
*
As I was saying, I don't hold with war
Myself, but when you join your unit
Send me some of your brass buttons
And I'll have a shot at the old hare
In the top meadow, for the black cow
Is a pint short each morning now.
Be careful, mind where you're going.
These headlighs dazzle, their bright blade
Reaps up a rich harvest of shadow.
But when they have gone, it is darker still,
And the vixen moves under the hill
With a new boldness, fretting her lust
To rawness on the unchristened grass.
It's easy to stray from the main road
And find yourself at the old domen.
I once heard footsteps in the leaves,
And saw men hiding behind the trunks
Of the trees. I never went there again,
Though that was at night, and the night is different.
The day divides us, but at night
We meet in the inn and warm our hearts
At the red beer with yarn and song;
Despite our speech we are not English,
And our wit is sharp as an axe yet,
Finding the bone beneath the skin
And the soft marrow in the bone.
We are not English...Ni bydd diwedd
Byth ar swn y delyn aur.
Though the strings are broken, and time sets
The barbed wire in their place,
The tune endures; on the cracked screen
Of life our shadows are large still
In history's fierce afterglow.