Christopher Twigg

 

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Mandala	Jesse Tree, Abergavenny
Diptych	Two Shields in Scotland

 

On the Summit of Mynydd Troed

A tiny red leaf
            drops on the page
a third of the size
                        of my little finger nail
smelling of nothing     of mountain
the leaf has a yellow drawing of a tree on it
         discoloured blotches
                         earth brown    death black
It has small serrated edges
                    and it wants to be free from
                              my finger's grip


I hear the wind
nobody    nameless
carrying mist
         racing across my field of vision
a sound like somebody spraying
or hosing down a courtyard
blood being cleaned away


I see a mushroom with a broken stem
          small and grey
unsheltered place
the wind comes from the south
from Llangors lake


so many broken pieces of stone
pink stone masks shields
edges broken the way ice breaks
the sound of the spray
the sky an even grey
the mountain is small
the tall man is on the mountain
seated on slabs
noticing his gloves
a lovely human green




and then the heart shaped hole
the cavernous chamber with the
             stone in there that looks
                                   like a book


the grasses and damp twigs
the voiceless mist
the treelessness, the sealessness
the life that is able to exist
                    on the mountain


little red flames of leaves
            mosses
            heathers
            slabs and roots






11^th November 2003

 

Tal

Tal   It's a root syllable but you don't know what it means
Tal is an activator of language
Tal   as in Hospital   Tal as in vitality
Tal is a drummer singing
Tal is rain on a leaf   Tal is a measure of Grief
Tal is before you were born
Tal is Talmud   Tal is Talmudic Scholar
Tal is long distance   Tal is local
Tal is one syllable   Tal is repeated
Tal  has a note to it

Tal is a rain syllable
Tal is a grass syllable
Tal is a corpse syllable
Tal is a corrugated iron syllable
Tal is a finger syllable
Tal lifts itself up and you down
Tal is heard in the forest
Tal is a wake up call to a frosty town

Tal you look at him his red face in the firelight
      and you wonder Tal just how much he is suffering
Tal is the Indo-European Welsh Semitic
Angry root searching deep exploring syllable Tal

Tal in his youth travelled in Islamic countries –
Tal heard about blood feuds in the villages
watched teenage boys memorizing the Koran
received handfuls of nuts from the villagers above Yusufeli
was greeted with suspicion and then warm hospitality