Yosemite
>
Clouds Cristo-wrap El Capitain
and erase the top of the Falls;
then an afternoon of heavy rain.
After the Monologue from the Oregon Trail
.
we go out of the theatre into a pitch night
that the rain has washed clear,
stare up through the huge pines and meet
a sky that comes down to greet us
>
with its diamonds closer,
bright and sharp and beyond number,
met as if for the first time. As if,
crossing prairies and mountains seeking a new life,
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this was the sign to put down roots: here,
and they saw exactly where they were.
.
.
The Rising of the Rivers
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Today the Taf’s lost
itself in the marsh pastures
between St Clears and Llandowror.
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It was always thus in those long winters
of my boyhood journeying down to the cousins
in the bay of cockles,
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but now we see clearly,
from the high arc of this new road,
it has spilled from its meanderings
>
to lake over the fields
up to the edges of this raised passage:
this would have drowned the old road.
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How long before the overspill
reaches Laugharne and the sea,
islanding the hamlets and farms?
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The Gronw, Wenalt, Fenni and Cywyn
rising in the Precelis and the Fans,
the crooked stream becoming the Taf and Cynin,
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all sluicing down to the Boathouse and Castle,
challenging the tide coming over
the heron and wader sand-flats of the bay.
>
Ahead of us on the eastern skyline –Paxton’s Tower:
high and dry – a rich man’s folly
to celebrate Nelson, who saved us.
Tony Curtis is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at the University of South Wales