Andrew Murray Scott is the author of four novels, most recently The Big J in 2008 and ten non-fiction books including biographies of Graham of Claverhouse and Alexander Trocchi. 'Llechwedd' is included in his first
poetry collection, Dancing Underwater, published in September 2009. Further information from website: www.andrewmurrayscott.com.
Llechwedd
By some artifice
candle lights across
the cavern's broken face
contrive to flicker and fade
illuminating the lives of miners
four hundred and fifty feet below
Blaenau-Ffestiniog.
Daytrippers, we hear them again,
their laughter, toiling in the dark,
splitting the slate above,
their pockets full of explosive,
passing on their dangerous skill
fathers to sons, their sons.
Their history commands the shadows;
a story of two hundred years of toil,
their village, its 37 chapels, the pride
of such men, a singing language,
male voice choirs, impeccably costumed.
Standing horizontal, away from the pits,
guarding the village for the next two hundred,
headstones in a language I cannot read,
in rows among well-tended grass.
Rain slicks their blue-grey stones
shining a misty light on ordinary lives
ghosting the impossible
down the blue depths of centuries.
Back to New Writing
