1282...

Cilmeri

Snow cloaked the fields. The river
armored with ice lay silent.
Shouts echoed faintly – shivers
of wind-borne mist, not violent.

Warfare and death seemed unreal.
Blood on the snow was not red
In the grey light of that field.
Snow-covered mounds were not dead.

Half-way twixt Annwn and earth,
with ice for arrows and spears,
armies of unhuman birth
were battling down the long years –

or so it seemed. But red blood
showed when our torches came.
Dead men lay mixed in the mud,
made real by that flickering flame.

Was it Llywelyn we found?
Or Arthur, on Camlann field?
Welsh blood defending Welsh ground,
Welsh bodies borne on Welsh shields

in the deep cold of that night –
our dream and our King brought low.
Darkness devoured his light
and left our blood on the snow.

(Copyright 2006 G. R. Grove)