(in memoriam Rowan Malcom)
‘Be thou my vision’ must have been your prayer. We sang the lorica to the sweet tune of Slane.
You patterned stones as a wheel on a beach and took a picture of the sea washing them away –
forseeing your foaming end? – and rowan flowers imitated your feat.
A carving from your hand was planted by your ashes – a budha or an intertwined girl? – you followed a teaching to the far east, and rowan berries were an exotic red.
Having cast off your fear of being a grain of sand to be blown away, you imitated the movement of dunes and walked the Camino, and wove turquoise nests from fishermen’s flotsam.
You said farewell tenderly to your friends and family, your face just a handful from illness, and the heat of withered rowan berries clinging on faded.
After the silence of meetings to await the word, you took an oath of silence while waiting for what shall come, and trunks, remains of rowan trees, stood white in the wilderness of the dark land.
I planted a rowan tree and waited for the ferny leaves, for the flowers, for the berries like beads from the east, and for the autum equinox for the leaves to wither, for the frost to tear and for the wind to scatter them.
And you, our inspiration – there was no need to set you free. You will not be forgotten while a rowan tree grows.
‘Criafolen’
© copyright text and translation Mary Burdett-Jones 2023
Published in Y Traethodydd, Gorffennaf 2021, 134-5.
