David Griffiths
Cwm Rhondda
“Guide me oh…..!” we sang and how we sang,
The rafters of the little chapel rocked
With echoes round brown pews and flaking walls.
The family all were there, in black of course
Despite the August heat, the windless day,
So too were friends from all around the Vale
True harvest of his life, his ninety years.
It all lay there within that polished box
The feet which walked the hills to tend the sheep,
The hands which once had spread the bright Spring grain,
Had drawn the awkward calf, had geared the horse,
Had pleached the hedge, had shooked the tall oat sheaves.
And, strangest this, had fired a gun in France.
He’d stood in rostrums biting his moustache
His year’s returns dependent on those bids
The auctioneer drew out with bantering tone.
Not once in all his life had trade been good
Though sometimes - he’d confess - it had been worse.
“When I tread the verge….” our voices raised
All echoing the faith which he had held
That, one day, he would leave this “barren land”.
And, so it seemed, on that hot August day
That angels called to him from Jordan’s bank
“Come home. Come home” they said “your toil is done!”
And I, a cynic, could not but believe.
Page(s) 21
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The