Poetry by Chris Wheeler

bow down

When the sunset is redder than blood
and everything is known by its shadow,
When the hills raise their hackles
and the trees blacken into voids,

always
a golden circlet
crowns the horizon,
bends with the bowing,
serene in its duty
to adorn the forehead
of a fading monarch.


cŵn annwn

Beyond the rolling garlands,
the late stands of autumn leaves
like mantles crowning the day,
a geyser of grey rolls, heaves

itself to the sky. Someone
is undone somewhere, burning,
but the whole sky is clouded
steel, like the shrouded yearning.

Between us fields of young snow
stretch in rows, a muffled front.
The fire is hard to find when
hounds of Gwyn are on the hunt

whole

I wonder some days
if wholeness will drop like a pebble
into my palm, and if it does,
whether it will have been
tumbled to satin,
mined from an untouched vein,
or pock-marked by volcanic heat?

I think it might be sharp-edged
enough to draw blood,
clear and cold as ice,
beautiful and hard.

And I think I might close my fist
around it and never let go.