As you can see, I jot down impressions on whatever bit of paper I have in my bag - usually an old shopping list! Double-click to read it more clearly.
Spring comes late on the mynydd. The daffodils
Of the valley are long past before a hint of green
Appears amongst the tawny rushes,
Stippling the shaggy winter-pelt of pale palomino which
Ripples in sharp winds straight from the Eastern steppes.
Willow and Alder huddle in the elbows of the moor,
Freeze-dried fingers rattling their jewellery,
Nudging against sporadic stains of gorse, golden as gannet heads,
Stunted bushes sheep-nibbled into pyramids of prickles,
Whilst a crow parts the sky with sepulchral wings.
Along the stream bed, a dipper dances on a boulder,
Curtsying to her mate, wings akimbo, reflected where
Obsidian water glissades downstream, capturing
A scrambling scum of bubbles to twirl in backwaters, to
Drag them protesting into eddies and fling them seawards.
A triangle of Blackbirds stutters loudly where wilderness
Attains a cloak of respectability. Here a
Tussy-mussy of cheery blossoms dances, Primulas
Planted heedless of winters glance, beside the further bank,
Beside a green where old men will bend and bowl on summer evenings,
Blind to the black seams beneath that their fathers mined.
(From notes taken whilst sitting in the car one evening a few years backat Cwmamman Rugby Club . . . The things you do for your children . . .)
