Influence
(My father’s family hail from Blaenau Ffestiniog,
which is overlooked by the Moelwyn mountains.)
In these screes, I cannot see
a sign of my ancestry,
or find, in this slump of slates
their chisel strokes, undated,…
nor find their names, their faces,
their gravestones, – a single trace.
And yet, my father’s fathers
are in my bones, and they are
the tumbled rocks. They swear and sing,
a catch in my own breathing.
The metres of this country
are stone on stone inside me.
Translated by Elin ap Hywel