This week a strange yet tender poem by the Welsh poet Bobi Jones (see also week 287), about the way we respond to newborn babies even if they can sometimes arrive a little the worse for wear, and developing in a surprisingly literal sense the idea of ‘worming their way into one’s heart’. In a wider sense it can be seen as being about how our instinct of care and compassion for the vulnerable and helpless can redeem the troubled soul, and as such it reflects Jones’s Christian preoccupations, though of course such an instinct is by no means the prerogative of one religion, or indeed of religion at all.

The translation that follows is my own.

Y Bychan Newydd-eni

‘Mae dy wallt di’n tenau, a’th wyneb
    Yn grych, a’th gorff yn wyw.
Oedd dy swrnai’n faith? Ai blin y daith
Nes dy heneiddio wrth dreiglo
    O ddninas Duw?

‘Ble’ wyt ti’n myned, yr hen ŵr ifanc,
    Yr hen ŵr ifanca’n fyw?’
‘Rwy’n mynd i dwrian fel mwydyn
Mewn tamaid o bridd cochlaid
    A thorri twll bach ynndo i’r byw.’

‘Pa bridd ydyw hwnnw, yr hen ŵr ifanc,
    Yr hen ŵr ifanca’n fyw?’
‘Dy galon di, gyfaill. Dyna un twll
A fynnais, er llawned o falais.
    A’r fan yna caf fyw.’

‘Beth wnei di am y surni, ’r hen ŵr ifanc
    Yr hen ŵr ifanca’n fyw?’
Sylwi dim arno. Taflu blodau drosto
A chyrlio’n smotyn cryno
    Fel eli mewn briw.’

Bobi Jones

The Little Newborn

‘Your hair so fine, your wrinkled face,
   Your body weak and wan.
Was your journey long? Did it weary you
To age you so as you came your way
   From the citadel of God?

’Where are you going, my young old man,
    My youngest old man alive?’
‘I am going to burrow my way within
As a worm that burrows into red soil
   Then tunnel back out into life.’

‘What soil is that, my young old man,
   My youngest old man alive?’
‘Your heart, my friend. To open that,
For all its sorrow, was my desire.
   It is there that I shall live.’

‘But what will you do with the grief you find
    My youngest old man above ground?’
‘Pay it no heed. Strew it with flowers
And curl up tight in my little spot
   Like salve upon a wound’.

The Welsh poet Robert Maynard Jones (1929-2017), usually known as Bobi Jones, was a major figure in twentieth century Welsh literature, extraordinarily prolific in many fields, including fiction and criticism as well as poetry. I believe even native Welsh speakers can find his work quite demanding, so perhaps understandably I like best those poems where he reins in a little his penchant for verbal fireworks and an accumulation of striking images, and lets the feeling come across more plainly, as in this memory of his father.

The (freeish) translation that follows is my own.

Yn Yr Hwyr

Yn yr hwyr wrth y tân mae fy nhad yn llifo’n ôl.
Rhai pethau a wnaethom gyda’n gilydd, a finnau’n aml
Yn angharedig. Rhithia yno ei gwrteis ystyried
A dwyn fy nghalon o fewn cysgod ei raeadr synd.

Pan chwyddodd y gofod mawr â’i fwlch ef
Ni wyddwn yr arhosai ynof er ei fynd mor derfynol
Ac y piciai i’m pen fel petai am ymestyn gartref
Yn yr hwyr wrth y tân a’i ddafnau’n gwlychu fy meddwl.

Y tu ôl i gefn y byd, yn yr hwyr wrth y tân
Crwydra ei gariad i lawr, wele mae’n dychwelyd
Cwymp drwy ’ngwythiennau i droi eu trydan
I oleuo ’nghof â’r dyddiau a fu mor hyfryd;
A ffrydiaf ynddo draw hyd hwyr rhyw ddiwrnod
Ar aelwyd ailgronni pawb, stôr pob anwylyd.

Bobi Jones

In The Evening

In the evening by the fire, my father comes back.
Certain things we did together: me
Often unkind. And again my heart finds shelter
In the shadow of his careful courtesy.

I did not know, when he added his own absence
To the great void, that he would still drop round
These evenings by the fire, stretch out his legs
As if at home, shake raindrops on my mind.

But when the world is not looking, his vagrant love
Returns to me, in the evening by the fire.
Coursing electric through my veins, it lights
The memory of fair days gone before,
As by the evening hearth our spirits join
Where love is stored, and all are gathered in.