T. Rowland Hughes
Crib Goch
Yell.
You won't scatter the scree's flock,
waterfall of stone sheep
panicking without fear or bleat,
their transfixed headlong rush;
shepherded by glaciers,
fleeced by ice and frost and fog,
storm-sheared
in the world's burst of birth.
You won't scare these.
Scream. Fling your rope
(though the wind snaffles your spindly voice)
a thousand plummeting feet
round the peaks of the bull of dark whose
bulk butt out dawn.
Shout.
Words don't count here.
Weren't they born yesterday
babbled and gurgled in some cave
not so far off?
Welsh; trans. Catherine Fisher
T. Rowland Hughes, Welsh, trans. Catherine Fisher.