Wild Words at the Grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym HD

Wild Words at the Grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym... ...Who slept on the slope of Cadair Idris, and woke up neither dead nor mad; Who rhymed until all the tongues had wound themselves three times round the room; Whose harp was a loom; whose fingers were the fast-moving shuttle of joyousness and praise; Who tangled Rhys Meigen with a mile-long lash of satire, stunned him with blunt metaphors, slit his throat with word-scythes; Who gave thanks for gloves, and blackbirds, and the sidelong-glances of girls; Who demolished walls with a sigh of assonance; Who made messengers of the mistlethrush, songthrush, woodcock, seagull, titmouse, trout and glaze-eyed salmon; Who kissed them as he charmed them, praised them as he tamed them, blessed them as he sent them; Who harnessed the wind to his trade, swore by the light of stars, cursed the ice, did battle with brambles and with geese, poured out spite at clocks and crows; Who made castles out of broom and serried their battlements with hawthorn and with sloes; Who built naves out of branches, consecrated seeds of elms, took his communion at mountain springs with roe-deer and with swans; Who saw bird-servers and choristers in the branches, singing praise to Mair and Dwynwen; Who watered bowers with tears, breathed sunlight on the sprigs, powdered girls with pollen and spores of bracken; Who hid there from heat and from husbands, held hands with Morfudd in the shadows, strung out her hair to shame the sun; Who waited there for Dyddgu and was disappointed; Who had the nuns, set his sights on the abbess; Who arraigned his own penis in lawsuits; Who was distracted in the cathedral; Who made trouble in a tavern; Who wore peacock-garlands on his arm; Who left a trail of cuckolds; Who gouged a furrow from Basaleg to Ystrad Fflur; Who licked out half of Llanbadarn; Who recanted his trade in perfect englynion; Who caught plague as he had contracted love; Who was the grief of Morfudd, Dyddgu and of nuns; Who caused birds to weep tears; Who made the fallow deer hang his antlers; Who gave the cuckoo no answer; Who became a yew tree; Who sheds needles and berries; Who grows hollow at his heart; Whose bark is red, whose harp was glad; Who slept on the slope of Cadair Idris; Who woke up neither dead nor mad. Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. With apologies to Dylan Thomas and Allen Ginsberg. The Triads attest that anyone who sleeps on the slopes of Cadair Idris will be either dead, mad or a poet by morning. A long-standing tradition has it that Dafydd died of the plague, and was buried beneath the yew in the churchyard adjoining Ystrad Fflur (Strata Florida) Abbey.