Welsh Journals

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have listened to a radio announcement, in the sense that, although the words affected him, he had allowed no background vision of the speaker to influence his thoughts or response. He dismissed the earlier image of a fair and gamesome, still-young wife and saw the real present-day widow, her drudgery-painted hands and dust-powdered face, wistfully expressive of sunken hopes and desires. Tenderness rose like a new emotion. Stooping over her, he roughly brushed her cheek with. his lips and, refusing to gratify his mind with explanations, walked hurriedly away. A Democratic Vista STRANGE sanctuary this, perched on the rising comstack Like a desert saint on a broken pillar Staring, eyes unstirring, until hill field sea are one. The procession of thought blurred Into the regular rising and falling of a sinewy arm And the dry rustle of sheaves. Tom Williams, Guto, Dick Williams, Wil bach, Dafydd dew and me, We are the people; our conversation is smooth and superficial Like a veneer of grained wood, curves leading nowhere Which was where they started. We are the people, for whom politicians shout and soldiers fight We sow and reap, eat and sleep, copulate in secret, think In circumferences of one dimension. We are the sacred people, the secular mystery, the Host, Whitman's elastic deity, Marx's material, Rousseau's noble savage, Mayakovsky's beloved- Tom, Guto, Dic, Wil, Dafie, and Me — Reasonably efficient between dawn and sunset, God chewing tobacco, God drinking tea, digesting rice, We are the people. God is not mocked. EMYR HUMPHREYS.