You hear it said sometimes
“I went there once”
I was young coming over the heads of the valleys,
the hills elephants lurching to their knees,
bracken shoulders rubbing smooth posts of sky
as strappers do, leaving white scrags of cloud
on old wire to show their children good routes.
Snow bones on ridges in spring are waiting
for their butties. Hill farmers speak little but
sometimes you will read love in our eye lines
as the winds do. Our animals are known
generations. Their paths we made together.
Our life titles are person and farm name;
Emrys the Revel, Betty Cwmffrwd and
Glyn Tesau, Davies Cilfaenor – like ships.
It rains crows on posts, cardinal beetles,
black screes, sandstone, globe-blue air, hedges
of dew, nettles and twine, rivers of vetch.
None of this country is not free. It does
always endure. None of its tides or sweet
mulling nights do not return. You will see.