LISTENING TO GLADDIE -

When I really think of it,
I don’t think of the dead language
Of the poets,
Or the group of Learners
(Clutching their slim files and sipping half lagers)
In the Brynymor lounge,
After a night class;
And I don’t think of a road sign daubed
In a dawn or dark night of student anger;
And I don’t think of a cottage
Stuck in a patchwork of landscape green,
Its roof charred and smoking to a skeletal protest.

When I think of it,
I think of two boys,
Sitting on the back wall of a garden,
Listening to Gladdie,
Ashen-faced and skinny,
Scolding her afternoon drunk
Of a husband called Stuie
With the wondrous weather of her words:
Her ancient voice
Like a mad wind that could crack the trees,
Like the loud, slapping waves of the dock-side sea;
Then, later, softer, almost humble,
Like the ‘school assembly’ prayer
Of the priest, standing like Dracula,
By a shovelled hole in Danygraig Cemetery;
Like the nervous, nursery mumble
Of the scrum of pigeons on the shed roof of Falvey’s.
And Dai Russ whispering,
“That’s Welsh” to me.

Published in GARDEN OF CLOUDS/NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Peter Thabit Jones, 2020

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LISTENING TO GLADDIE