Man’s life is like a cloud that fades and is gone,
Man dies and never returns,
Forgotten by all who knew him,
So he continually strives to make his mark whilst he is on this Earth,
So that he will be remembered in centuries to come,
Defaming people as he strives for success,
Foolishly gathering riches that he cannot take with him,
We were born as nothing,
And we will die as nothing.
.
By Wendy Tina Jones
That day,
slate skies still gloomed
the slanting fields,
but timid pink smiled faintly
between the clouds.
.
Grave sheep,
catched to the hill’s green cant,
stirred in the mellowing air,
and misty pastures corsetted
by cattle-keeping walls,
appeared to meditate
upon their coming colours.
.
Deep in the valley’s throat
a tipsy tractor undulated,
loudly blue, defiant
against the earth’s brown quiet.
.
Suddenly,
a whirr of pigeons
in arrowed flight,
climbed then dived
into the valley’s side,
melting in the solvency of trees
like the easing of a pain.
.
Rubber-shod
I trod the meadow’s ooze,
feeling the muscling turf
beneath my feet; then,
welcoming the simplifying air,
I took my first firm step
from the winter of your going.
.
.
by Vic Rees
For those us born by the ocean
there will always be a listening,
an ear close to the ground
like an animal trailing.
.
I remember one night
I couldn’t see anything of water
and I was sober as the stars,
yet below the tracked paving-stones
and gushing up through cracks…
benches tilted, clouds rocked.
I was a vessel, filled full of it.
.
This town at the valley’s head
I’ve adopted or it’s adopted me:
wakes fan from the simple phrases
and often laughter can erode
the most resistant expressions.
Despite this, I’m following the river
along our mutual courses:
.
to the boy on a storm-beach
hopping from boulder to boulder
trying to mimic a mountain-goat;
to the young man sitting in a ring
of perfumed smoke of dolphins
plucked by the sleight-fingered sea.
.
.
By Mike Jenkins
from This House, My Ghetto
You ask how it is. I will tell you.
There is no glass. The air spins in
The stone rectangle. We warm our hands
With apple wood. Some of the smoke
Rises against the ploughed, brown field
As a sign to our neighbours in the
Four folds of the valley that we are in.
Some of the smoke seeps through the stones
Into the barn where it curls like fern
On the walls. Holding a thick root
I press my bucket through the surface
Of the water, lift it brimming and skim
The leaves away. Our fingers curl on
Enamel mugs of tea, like ploughmen.
The stones clear in the rain
Giving their colours. It’s not easy.
There are no brochure blues or boiled sweet
Reds. All is ochre and earth and cloud-green
Nettles tasting sour and the smells of moist
Earth and sheep’s wool. The wattle and daub
Chimney hood has decayed away, slowly
Creeping to dust, chalking the slate
Floor with stories. It has all the first
Necessities for a high standard
Of civilised living: silence inside
A circle of sound, water and fire,
Light on uncountable miles of mountain
From a big, unpredictable sky,
Two rooms, waking and sleeping,
Two languages, two centuries of past
To ponder on, and the basic need
To work hard in order to survive.
.
By Gillian Clarke
from The Sundial (Gwasg Gomer) 1978
.
Additional information:
When her children were young, Clarke bought and renovated an old, ruined small holding called Blaen Cwrt in Talgarreg, south Ceredigion, where she now lives, and which she often figures as her poetic ‘milltir sgwâr’ (square mile). […] Reminiscing on that time and that house as formative to the emergence of her poetic voice, Clarke recalls that ‘to “work hard” meant more than one thing. It’s both chopping wood, carrying water, and writing about it.’
Dr Siriol McAvoy, Gillian Clarke: My Box (A help-sheet for teachers) CREW: Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales, Swansea University, August 2018
I emerge from the mind’s
cave into the worse darkness
outside, where things pass and
the Lord is in none of them.
.
I have heard the still, small voice
and it was that of the bacteria
demolishing my cosmos. I
have lingered too long on
.
this threshold, but where can I go?
To look back is to lose the soul
I was leading upward towards
the light. To look forward? Ah,
.
what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.
I am alone on the surface
of a turning planet. What
.
to do but, like Michelangelo’s
Adam, put my hand
out into unknown space,
hoping for the reciprocating touch?
.
by R. S. Thomas
from Later Poems (1983)
Such afternoon glooms, such clouds chimney low –
London, the clouds want to move but can not,
London, the clouds want to rain but can not –
such negatives of a featureless day:
the street empty but for a van passing,
an afternoon smudged by old afternoons.
Soon, despite railings, evening will come
from a great distance trailing evenings.
Meantime, unemployed sadness loiters here.
Quite suddenly, six mourners appear:
a couple together, then three stout men,
then one more, lagging behind, bare-headed.
Not one of them touches the railings.
They walk on and on remembering days,
yet seem content. They employ the décor.
They use this grey inch of eternity,
and the afternoon, so praised, grows distinct.
by Dannie Abse
from A Small Desperation (1968)
What is Christmas without
snow? We need it
as bread of a cold
climate, ermine to trim
our sins with, a brief
sleeve for charity’s
scarecrow to wear its heart
on, bold as a robin.
by R. S. Thomas
from Later Poems
(1983)
