After the medieval Trioedd Ynys Prydein

April, end of, blue sky, a chill in the air
one of the Fortunate Men of the Island of Prydein
sitting in a garden overlooking the sea
listening to blackbirds, the far-off shut of a door
I am rewriting the Triads, remembering
Rosa, Marie, Julia Long Golden Hair,
Three Women who Received the Beauty of Eve
and how like the sea they slipped from me
too easily—a litany of waves falls and
overwrites its moment.  O, how the sun silvers
the sea’s hand in the evening, it draws me back
to the Three Great Enchantments
and my work, listing—Capital,
the Solace of Purchase, its Pleasant Green—
and though the blackbirds sing, the Three
Steeds of Burden, Three Horses of Plunder
lumber onto my tongue and I wonder
what is it about Britain that names surfeit
like floods in spring for the Three Arrogant Men,
the Three Men of Shame, the Three Hard Slaps
that fell on the Island of Prydein
in the Year of our Lord, 2021.

Published in PN Review, Volume 48, No.6, 2022.

The epithets in the poem are taken from Rachel Bromwich’s collation of the medieval Welsh Trioedd Ynys Prydein.