Iwan Llwyd : Aneirin

In a comment on my earlier post on the death of Iwan Llwyd, Hilaire asked about the poem below and subsequently sent me a copy of the Welsh text suggesting I translate it. So here is an initial attempt. Aneirin was the author of the ‘Goddodin’, a series of elegies for Brythonic warriors killed at the Battle of Catraeth in the Sixth Century.

Aneirin

With your camera and your helmet
you jumped down from the helicopter
a bare mile from the battle,

then escaped it squatting
in the nearest refuge while missiles
exploded in bits all around you:

past the burning skeletons of tanks
and the ashes of empty bodies, wounded soldiers
and the raw flesh which fed the crows,

you stumbled and fell through the mud
getting up from time to time to take a picture
in colour of a man killing:

in black and white
in Catraeth, Kampuchea,
the Somme and the Six Counties

you nurtured the magic of a familiar story
gathering the boys to answer your questions
their eyes following the lens’s prophecy:

you gave them fame to survive the battle
a glimpse of eternity
from the unbiased muse of a journalist.

Iwan Llwyd (1957-2010)

I'm re-blogging my translation of 'Y Corryn' by Iwan Llwyd following his recent sudden death at the age of 52.

The Spider

His web was perfect
and him sitting there
where the glistening threads intersect:

he spent his life knitting sunlight
to a round plane of dew;
the end of his labour in sight

he'd listen to the drip of the rain
between the lines
silently shifting their refrain

and the grey river in full flow
irritable as it falls
companionless below

to meet the brackish floods
between the autumn cliffs
and the fringed woods;

he is impatient
weaving intricate patterns,
each answering assent

marking an exact measure
between corner and centre
stealing the stars' treasure

of diamonds to entice
insects along steel threads
towards the silence:

then a sudden rush of air
a quiver through the intersections;
like an old man he's there

under the yellow leaves
gathering it all in
to the pattern that he weaves.

The Spider (Y Corryn)

Iwan Llwyd was winner of the National Eisteddfod Crown in 1990, and, with Twm Morys, has been a productive deviser of poetic and musical entertainments in Welsh. In this well-known poem he compares the process of the weaving of a web by a spider to the making of a poem. I have aimed, here, at reproducing both the meaning and the formal structure of the original.

Iwan Llwyd (front) with John Barnie, Twm Morys and Nigel Jenkins

(prospectus for a bilingual poetry and music tour)

The Spider

His web was perfect

and him sitting there

where the glistening threads intersect:

he spent his life knitting sunlight

to a round plane of dew;

the end of his labour in sight

he'd listen to the drip of the rain

between the lines

silently shifting their refrain

and the grey river in full flow

irritable as it falls

companionless below

to meet the brackish floods

between the autumn cliffs

and the fringed woods;

he is impatient

weaving intricate patterns,

each answering assent

marking an exact measure

between corner and centre

stealing the stars' treasure

of diamonds to entice

insects along steel threads

towards the silence:

then a sudden rush of air

a quiver through the intersections;

like an old man he's there

under the yellow leaves

gathering it all in

to the pattern that he weaves.