The vase would be for the yellow sun-streaked
daffodil, its brilliant
bouquet untold
in hues, Wales
aristocracy of gold
under the watch of Gothic
castles, meek
out of gentle song of a
thousand trees
next to black
international velvet.
Where the spires rise to
the morn’s fiery stealth
the ink drawing can
scarcely describe me
as I am now, my hair
white, my eyes bright,
I am in waiting as the
country’s sight
is just out of reach too.
The stone upon
stone of Caernarfon and
Harlech’s dim light
seeping out from walls
within walls and tide
waters brimming far away
dreamy shore.
There is light in this
vase of yellow-born,
like the sun streaming
across the miles, bold
and high cliffs, isolated
nature, old
red sandstone, rugged cliffs battered by storms,
wild grass hosting a long
Skokholm haven:
seabirds, in heath and
salt marsh, St. John’s wort
rises serene; three-lobed
water crowfoot—
with whisper of dew on
ancient heaven.
In the grassland there
are the tree mallow,
small nettle, sea
campion—the guillemots,
chiffchaff, willow warblers,
common whitethroat,
over mudstones and Red
Maris. Fallow,
the linen of the garment
lay in knots,
and the seamstress
laboured at the new cloak.
With yellow dress now
tied at her thin waist,
lace enamel lapping at
her pale sleeves,
the ties drew back the
bodice, and the lea
glistened from beyond her
locked garden gate.
Ghostly was the sound of
rabbits footsteps,
quietly the dawn
transpired its gold knock;
the meadow courted her
favour, as clock
ticked on and guided her
elder years, debt
to those who had shown
her guidance, advice
over the years always
wise with graying
mentors’s speech, their
moment joys and shadows,
until she knelt with
sentiment, chastised.
In the will of God:
saints—deepest praying—
stone upon stone was an
altar hallowed.
The moor, grasslands and
coast, rife with curlew:
eerily they call, and
townspeople lift
their heads—shaking at
the suicide rifts
which rise to sky and
echo; almost rue
their grey feathered
existence were they not
shrieking a
blood-chilling eloquent call,
frightening as Eden’s
vine at the Fall,
her austere fertility
entwined brought
images of fruit and
flow’r to the mind,
along with temptress of
the gnarled tree,
where pressure from the
dark side stormy, breaks
down walls of the
imagination-kind.
Pecking in the mud with
icy curved beaks
each curlew contrasts
Snowdon’s snow-flaked peak.
Emily Isaacson
