Words and Lines

My Wales

by Tris Kerslake

I sit on a hillside and contemplate the view. I see what the wind sees, what the cloud sees, and the three of us contemplate my Wales.

In grey light see the skyline paint the jagged peaks, erratic breasts and whitened nipples of the mountains. Towering physique, the harshest granite slopes are soft for her children. She welcomes me home with stillness and silence.

From this hillside I see my black land, rich in history and monuments. From the mother mountains down the frothing white of river, following the wild kings road. My eyes go north in dark grass steps. See the melancholy lines of erosion and ancient waters, see the foundations of the land.

From here the quiet heaps of slag cannot be seen, remnants of busier days when coal was more than country. Neither can I see the stone-wrapped towns of butcher shops and tiny chapels, where the choir sings everlasting hymns of glory, a purer exultation than speech. I cannot see the factories and pits from here: they are mere knowledge.

The croak of a crow distracts me. Black, like the crushed black gold that lies beneath me, it makes its own Welsh song: harsh, unlovely. Primitive. I wish it a good-morning; it looks once, then flies away. I spoke in English. Try it in the Welsh, I thought, but I could not. Time, time that grows us all old, has withered my tongue away. I sit on my hillside and curse time in English.

Wales. It lies, just off the beaten track to England. Neglected, hidden little place, My Wales.