Bardsey Island

Is this then the Isle of the Blessed,

So tiny and weird,

Midway between sea and sky,

Between life and death?

Do the bones of twenty thousand saints

Howl underfoot?

Nine maidens wait to heal

The wounded king.

Across Cardigan Bay,

Straining against thewed currents,

Ghost-boats brought flowering corpses

To their incunabulum,

Their druidical Rome.

From all across the peninsula

Fairy paths, straight as sunbeams, home,

Dark-fiery snake-rivers,

For the soul to dowse and dream,

And suckle on revelations,

Departing hence over the western horizon.

(Over on the mainland, at low tide,

In a gully below St Mary’s at Uwchmynydd

Pilgrims, last before boarding

Their soul-ships to the west,

Fill their mouths with fresh wellwater

And dash three times around the church,

Crossing themselves with wishes,

And straining not to spill a drop).


Glass-castled Myrddin sleeps here

In coiling cycles of time,

Guarding the Thirteen Treasures of Britain:

Arthur’s Cloak of Invisibility,

The Sword of Rhydderch Hael,

The Hamper of Gwyddno Garanhir,

The Drinking Horn of Bran,

The Chariot of Morgan,

The Halter of Clydno Eiddyn,

The Knife of Llawfrodedd,

The Cauldron of Dyrnwych,

The Whetstone of Tudwal Tydglyd,

The Red Coat of Padarn,

The board game Gwyddbwll,

The Ring of Eluned

And the Dish of Rhygenydd.


Pelagius wanders the booming shore,

Feather-cloaked Jesus in his esplumoir,

Shedding lives like seasons,

While seals by the hundred bask and sing.


Where the lost abbey’s lone tower

Rises, hermits once crouched in huts,

Fistfuls of watercress their eucharist,

Rendering their bones to prayer.


Pilgrim, your boat is ready:

Do you dare to board her and be rowed

Across the perilous tides and currents,

Into the west?