Pwllgolchi
Afon Irfon, a mere trickle from Bryn Gawr
under or over the flat Irish bridge,
storm or drought-depending,
- where a lone farmhouse couches
at the foot of the devils staircase,
it’s old, weathered barns, off-grid
fronted by windswept beech:
with its rumours of hunting eagles;
and on through the wolf’s gorge
until it comes to the waters-falling
over the pocked granite rocks
in plumed cascades
to the peaty pool below:
Pwllgolchi.
where shepherds once washed sheep
and folk come to swim their horses;
children swing from the old oak
hunkered into the high bank there
spreadagled above the water.
Prime spot to leap or dive.
In full spate, the song of the river
becomes thunder
the steep banks allowing no space
to ease the rising flood -
evidenced by a huge boulder,
once slung like a pebble
by gargantuan forces of the current
to lodge against an oak
twenty foot up.
The worn layers and grooves
in the rocks
constituting a wild instrument
for its music.