Ifor ap Glyn 

Translator

The night is full of men;
men who know...
 
some praying, some writing home
some lying down, horizontal already
experimenting with eternity....
 
The burning of the flames throws 
sulphur-yellow shapes across the soldiers;
some are sewing their names on their coats...
 
Because they know...
 
that tomorrow, 
corpses must fill the fields.

‘They Rest in Peace’, says the plaque to the fallen,
but there are no hymns, on the jukebox tonight, 
not even Rhys
or Ebenezer,
that exhorted those troops from the trench... 

I lift a pint at the bar where I was baptized.
It’s time for the service;
a girl collects the communion glasses;
she gives the barman a sermon smile.
 
I will lift up mine eyes to the vertiginous gallery
where my father took the collection,
where he first met my mother’s glance,
her lifelong commitment 
with the shilling in his plate.
 
‘From whence cometh my help?’
I fold my hands around my beer.
Close my eyes. Bow my head.
Count my blessings ...
but cannot enjoy
my blasphemous pint.

On the brow of the hill,
where bent bushes
and hunched hedgerows
complain of the wind to the dusk,
 
this is where autumn takes down
the  watch-faces of the trees...
 
the leaves are like cogwheels
twirling in the wind,
like letters flying,
as the alphabet disintegrates.

It’s a custom with my youngest 
To sprinkle “sleeping dust”
Over his eyes
Before closing them, 
combing the sleep down through his hair 
and tenderly over his forehead
 
Good night, Dad,
Good night…
 
I listen to our children breathing the night,
Their tiny heads under the covers
Gone somewhere where  we cannot follow
But at least they will return;
The stars of some eternal night
Speckle their hair
And their faces are like clocks
In the bedroom twilight.
 
Their morning is afternoon to us;
Their afternoon will see us settled for the night;
Some quiet Sunday perhaps
the sun through the blinds 
will raise its black ladder on my bedroom wall 
and the child fists 
will have become adult hands 
that will sprinkle the sleeping dust 
over my closed eyes
before combing it down through my peppered grey hair…
 
Good night, Dad,
Good night…

Dyfeisiwyd 
y caets
cyn 
dyfeisio adenydd;

mewn caetsys,
mi gana’r adeiniog rai
am ryddid 
yr awyr;

gerbron y caetsys,
mi gana’r an-adeiniog rai
am gyfiawnder 
y caets.

Dyddiad a chyfeiriad wyf

            Cyfarchiad ffurfiol wyf

            Brawddeg agoriadol wyf i. Brawddeg rhagarweiniol wyf innau. Brawddeg wyf i sy’n gwneud neges, sy’n gwneud neges, gwneud neges. Ple wyf i gan un sy’n anobeithio. Dicllon o wylaidd wyf i. Disgrifio campau mawr wyf innau. Wyf i’n ail-adrodd gwyleidd-dra. Rhoi cyfrif wyf i, rhifo, rhestru. Esboniad pellach wyf innau, ymhelaethiad manwl. Ail-bledio wyf i, yn ail-adrodd gwae. Bys wyf i yn twrio mewn clwy’ heb geulo. Apelio at ddynoliaeth wyf i. Apelio at gydwybod wyf innau. Rwyf innau’n apelio at euogrwydd sy’n deillio o’r hen amser gynt. Dweud anwiredd yn fwriadol wyf i.

            Dechrau stori newydd wyf i. Esbonio’r amgylchiadau wyf i. Cyfeirio at stori arall wyf innau. Canol y stori wyf i. Codi i’r uchafbwynt wyf i. Gollyngiad wyf i ...  
A’r diwedd wyf innau. Dweud bachog wyf i sy’n crynhoi ergyd y stori’n dwt. Dehongliad newydd o neges y stori wyf i. Awgrymu diwedd posib i bethau wyf i. Ailadrodd yr hen wae unwaith yn rhagor wyf innau. Chwythu bygythion amhenodol wyf i. Cri druenus o’r galon wyf i. Cyfuniad nawdeg y cant o anobaith a deg y cant o gynddaredd wyf i. Cynnig o gymwynasau rhywiol wyf innau. Disgrifio’r lle a’r amser wyf i. Rhif ffôn wyf i.  

            Yr eiddoch yn gywir wyf i.


                        Llofnod wyf i.

                        Enw wedi ei deipio wyf i