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Ffynnon Esger

Ffynnon Esger (‘Esger Spring’)

original by Donald Evans, translation by Gwilym Morus-Baird

She is some refuge

from the most silent of retreats,

far from the sights of the world,

and trivially unimportant too.

And yet the old ditch

to its foundation is like the light of the stars,

and her gaunt cleft from the black ground

is counted amongst the great powers.

Bright of complexion is the dusk of her depth

to the channels of mystery

from the sunshine spiralling

to the depth of her murmuring cellar,

and she is always light

in her path from the underworld

and she jumps cold, rising again

enlivening from its core.

I hear in the noiseless bustle

the sounds of water’s expanses

on the moorland at the fringes of her land —

the spring of every river throughout the world.