LLEU

‘Llech Ronw’ (Gronw’s Stone)

Bryn Saeth, near  Afon Cynfael

When you were an eagle

And hung in a tree,

flesh falling to field,

slipping between the worlds

invisibly

came a pig, transforming

flesh back to flesh

* * *

O little pig

so long I have endured pain

I am worn and weary

O little pig

I am neither alive nor dead

Rhiannon’s birds call over the waters

O little pig

the wild one teaches me

like Myrddin I long to be free

O little pig

I am full of fear,

carry my news to Gwydion

* * *

Then you were a man

with a long spear

to pierce stone;

like an eagle’s beak

it tore flesh from bone.

{This conflates verses ascribed to Myrddin in the Black Book of Carmarthen and part of the story in the Fourth Branch of Y Mabinogi, and more besides. For which conflations I humbly claim poetic licence.}