A Wooden Spoon for the WRU
  (A druid speaks)

  I have consulted the mistletoe,
  stared at starling footprints in snow:
  the time is ripe for your overthrow.

  I give you a spoon I shaped of ash
  because you didn't nurture the flash
  of play but thought, maybe, of cash.

  Here's a dip I turned from oak
  but look, in your hands, it slips into smoke.
  You've made our last Grand Slam a joke.

  Actual rugby can never redeem
  your backroom moves of dodge and scheme.
  It's you who need to raise your game.

  How can a committee always outlive
  coaches, players? It’s hard to forgive
  shadowy men with hands like sieves.

  Here's the last spoon, I carved it from gall:
  it's you, not the team, who have dropped the ball.
  Hang this up, with shame, in your hall.

Horizon with People

  This senedd was in us before it was built,
  a floating island of the mind

  in need of a home and a set of stairs
  so we could re-marry clouds from elsewhere

  and walk on slate pavements of sea
  daily, defying gravity.

  Speak softly here and the whole of Wales
  can hear: what you say

  now doubly matters. Let your words
  be lighthouse, let them be the roots

  of this, our democratic oak,
  converting knottiness into shade.

  Rain happens between us,
  but now we have disciplines of glass.

  If Penarth should dive like a whale
  into the Severn, we’ll have human trees -

  people rooted in what you say -
  and a second horizon. So make it true,

  hospitable but not afraid to say no,
  not mealy-mouthed, nor full of ego,

  that we may deserve our reflections in water,
  be partners worthy of this sky, this air.

Reply to the Haka

Welcome, enemy, to holy ground.
Our ball will carry you underground.

Cyn hir, fe fydd eich cnawd yn goch,  [Soon, your flesh will be red
Llosgwn ein llwybr trwyddoch.  as we burn our path through you.]

You're a forest, we're a fire,
You are paper, we are stone.
We will see you to the bone.
You may dance, but we're the drum.

In your wall we find the door.
You have whispered, but here's our roar.

© Gwyneth Lewis

  Amgueddfa Genedlaethol y Glannau, Abertawe
  17ed o Hydref, 2005

  Beth sy'n dyst i'r trawsnewidwyr?
  Tirlun. Priodas gwres a mwyn
  yn creu man cyfarfod. Pridd yn troi'n gadwyn

  yna'n drafnidiaeth. Morwr ar long
  yn paentio pluen i'w danfon i'w fam.
  Tanwyr yn moli ar allor y fflam,

  yn creu ymherodraeth. Beth yw cof
  y corff am ei lafur? Cryd
  cymalau, cromfach cefn mewn gwely clyd,

  a chelfyddyd pethau - swn
  dur ar ledr yn hogi min
  ar rasal fy nhad, sy'n estyn ei en

  er mwyn iddo eillio. Amser yn ffrwydro
  fel metel mewn ffwrnais. Beth yw pris
  cyfoeth? Bod yn brentis

  i broses. Beth yw braint
  diwydiant? Na chollir gronyn
  o egni. A'r galon yw'r gloyn.

  National Waterfront Museum, Swansea
  17 October, 2005

  What's witness to the transformers?
  Landscape. The marriage of mineral and heat
  creates a place for people to meet. Soil is a chain

  then transportation. A sailor at sea
  paints a feather to send it home.
  Firemen worship at the altar of flame,

  forging an empire. What memory
  do bodies hold of labour? Aches
  and pains, a back's bracket in a snug bed,

  the art of objects - the sound
  of steel on leather honing the blade
  on my father's cut-throat; he stretches his chin

  to begin his shaving. Time explodes,
  red-hot, from a furnace. What's the price
  of wealth? Being apprenticed

  to process. And the privilege
  of industry? That not one quantum
  of energy's lost. And the heart is the ember.

    It starts like Gavin Henson's hair :
    style over gravity,
    knowing that flair
    can outwit the set pieces of power.

    The flanker flings out a muddy baby
    born from the ruck,
    prop gives us a future when he scores a try
    because our voice is that infant's cry -

    hundreds of thousands, one set of nerves
    shared for eighty minutes.
    Our spine is the curve
    of the ball's parabola, the swerve

    of fifteen men so mutually aware
    that "how" becomes "what".
    This is high art: ball in the air
    not held, but between us. I'm not there

    but we are, to witness try-scorers
    lay clutches of dragons' eggs,
    dive into the shallow, ecstatic waters
    behind the line, and solid earth roars.

© Gwyneth Lewis

Maen Hir
Er cof am Gwynfor Evans

Ar fryn saif un o'm meini prawf
yn unig a chennog.

Mae'n briod â'r golau ac mae ei wisg
yn llaes, fel cysgodion.

Mae hwn yn un o bileri'r byd,
yn cynnal cylchoedd cerrig y sêr

ar echel amser. Yn ddall
- er yn amlwg - mae'n darlledu gair

yn ronynnau a thonnau,
yng nghlymau DNA

moesoldeb. Ac yn clywed cri
o dywyllwch tywodfaen, ymateb o bell

fel mwyeilch yn bloeddio ganol nos,
mwyeilch yn hedfan ganol dydd.

© Gwyneth Lewis