By: Byron Beynon.

AFRICAN DAISIES

The family who’d moved
next to my father’s house
asked the name of the flowers
that grew outside his porch.
“African Daisies”, he said.
Unfolding with the sun
they open like a greeting,
an innocent warmth
a remedy of colours
which smile
each one a primitive brazier of light.
 

LAKE FEVER

Near the rim of the lake
he recovered from a fever
as high as the surrounding range it mirrored.

A witness to its cooling
breath which travelled
from the water’s lips

to where he lay.
At night, the mind ajar,
memory entered

through the indifferent walls of Glanllyn.
Incense of clues from
an order of stars

above a labour of sour farms,
where the taut mountains reached out
as the intonation and diversity of evening

remained with him.
The blue isosceles
bathed outside with shadows,

attentively and patiently
expectant for the lyrics of tomorrow
brought by a new, unexplored light.

MORNING

Here I can see the sun rise,
its rays bathe me,
awakens the room
where I slept.
A divine light
slowly undressing the darkness,
caressing walls, my bed and skin
through an open window
where a new atmosphere
conjured a freshness,
a threshold stirred
for the challenging ways ahead.
 

NEAR ST. DOGMAELS

The day’s rays
casting an obstinate light

near the tireless Teifi.
The veins of a morning walk

with winter colour,
a genuine calligraphy on stone

surviving the centuries,
evoking now a distant time

with fresh DNA
conjuring humanity’s thoughts.

###

Byron Beynon lives in West Wales.  His work has appeared in several publications including The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, Chiron Review, Galway Review, Nine Mile Magazine and Poetry Ireland Review.  Collections include The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions) and Where Shadows Stir (The Seventh Quarry Press).