Welsh Journals

A Visit to Maerdy THIS raising of the lid, deliberate burrowing Leaves shivers which the sun but partly dries The darkening grasses fructify and seed Upon the hump of earth wherein he lies The shadows of the roses here entreating My shadow to be joining with their dark. Will when the strong sun cools remove like souls And walk away from here and leave no mark So why do I come drooping over here The compass-point of fascinated fear ? Nothing is left, no masque or mime repeats, Commemorates the pattern of two lives Cut-thread cavorting can no warmth infuse, Nor funerals fluster widows into wives The grand theme of the flapping skin insists That here the hollow music sounds, the tread Of velvet-black processions and the hushed Respectful voices of the nearly dead. I wept him clouds of pity in the past Because a second shook him from my sight, Shredded his hands and pulverised his hair, Shed him away in a transforming light, All tears sprung half of horror, half of self Turn inward to the meaning of the tomb Worm-sodden shrink and falter numbly back To dull the parquet of the drawing-room, So, relegated now to Easter Week, The grave jags down the careful second act- The toppling scenery tumbles to the scream And ruin ravages cosmetic tact. JOYCE HERBERT.