Five Poems by Byron Beynon

 

BRITTANY 

 

 

A country of the sea 

understanding a coastline of language 

with a tangle of  coves, pierced rocks, 

bays struggling on a day of increasing rain 

to survive with a changing atmosphere 

as the camellias blossom 

beneath an ever-permutating sky. 

 

Armor, Pointe de Pen-Hir, 

Finistere, Carnac megaliths, 

an identity with the root of names, 

moors yellow with words of gorse and sharp 

broom, as a headland points 

towards the legend of foam-flecked waves, 

wine-dark at evening, 

moving like summer's blood. 

 

 

 

 

IN PURSUIT OF VENUS 

 

 

A scenic vase with flowers 

on the sill of a house 

 

faces the clothes line 

hung in a February alleyway 

 

transformed today 

into a necklace worn 

 

by Venus, queen of laughter, 

mother of love, 

 

rich globules of liquid - 

pearls which mirror 

 

a benevolent zone's  

splendour after the rain. 

 

 

 

 

A GIRL READING 

 

 

I see her 

sitting alone 

engaged with words 

that the mind's eye 

translates into private thought. 

How many hours 

has she inhabited this place? 

Shut inside a landscape 

where language  

makes a difference, 

absorbs and changes. 

She focuses on pages 

that turn quietly 

with the eloquent breeze, 

like those silent years 

keeping time 

under matured 

skies and remembered fields. 

 

 

 

 

WATCHING  

 

 

Watching waves through 

a library window, 

I saw a painter standing 

near the shoreline 

with the afternoon light. 

Footprints that walked 

towards the troubled sea, 

imagination drawn there 

by the coast's echoing  

question as to where all  

the labyrinths of life disappear. 

Before leaving the wide frame 

he paused, 

a personal composition 

that soon changed within 

a resurrected air. 

 

 

 

 

THE BLACK BOOK 

 

 

The air modulates 

through the grass, 

each note a process 

towards a gradual 

understanding, 

a definite sound 

within words 

written by a single 

hand surviving 

the fallen centuries. 

Memory brings 

the sense of light, 

a river's rebirth, 

nature's benevolent strength 

as an unknown scribe 

felt the pulse of language,  

its flow and music 

on imagination's durable parchment.  

 

 

 

 

* The Black Book of Carmarthen is one of the most important surviving manuscripts in the Welsh language. It was written by a single scribe at Carmarthen Priory in about 1250. It includes religious poems and poems about the heroes of the Dark Age.

Byron Beynon coordinated Wales' contribution to the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). His work has appeared in several publications including Agenda, Cyphers, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine, and the human rights anthology In Protest. Collections include The Echoing Coastline (Agenda) and "Where Shadows Stir" (The Seventh Quarry Press).