Y Gwanwyn

Blodeuwedd

By Gillan Clarke

Hours too soon a barn owl

broke from woodshadow.

Her white face rose

out of darkness

in a buttercup field.

Colourless and soundless, feathers

cream as meadowsweet

and oakflowers, condemned

to the night, to lie alone

with her sin.

Deprived too of afternoons

in the comfortable sisterhood

of women moving in kitchens

among cups, cloths and running

water while they talk,

as we three talk tonight

in Hendre, the journey over.

We pare and measure and stir,

heap washed apples in a bowl, recall

the day’s work, our own fidelities.

Her night lament

beyond conversation,

the owl follows

her shadow like a cross

over the fields,

Blodeuwedd’s ballad

where the long reach

of the peninsula

is black in a sea

aghast with gazing.

With thanks to Gillian Clarke for permission to post this poem, and also to Madeline Foerster for permission to feature the image of her painting 'Valentine'.

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