Burton Bringing The House Down

[on the voice of Richard Burton (cerdd dafod)*]

He didn’t want them to tell him

how it was going to be

so he stood back a

little from the stage of

burnished expectations

still,  with a force of fire

and wonder shaping

while the gossip mills

stepped up business trespassing,

so I think, out of sheer envy

on a

something received beyond they couldn’t endure:

transcendence made immediate- an impossible thing-

cut crystal net overfilled with singing birds that little tamed out of wildness

so vivid who could believe it anything

but the voice heard by the saints in dreams made more astute;

or dream-music half-retained by kings

on waking to another day

forgetting for a moment where they were

or what they had to do

wading through poor Richard aftermaths

we’ve heard enough from the queasy forerunners

others at the scene

quashing the keylight

you didn’t even need

and asking themselves if it was really you

making the pieces fit

until the stained glass shone

as if it were almost Light itself-

then swallowing it?

oh who can kill God inside himself-

He’ll only rise to pity your

thinking you’ve brought the whole

thing to a close when you’re really

only tugging at the stage sets.

even if you burn it down He’s

smoldering half in ashes with you,

willing it to end well…cracking at the edges-

you think by flooding it to the very

brink the soul will drown

and then you’ll show them it was

Yours, not theirs-

but fare-thee-well-

whatever the heart sounds like

translated into Welsh was yours-

stand fast in a shaft of Heaven’s light

only you can see declaiming everything at last

without saying a word-

mary angela douglas 20-21 november 2011

Note: cerdd dafod is a Welsh expression denoting something like a kind of language that embodies the heart of the heart the heart of language, something untranslatable from what I understand (not directly, I don't know Welsh) but something which many Welshmen attributed both to Richard Burton and Dylan Thomas (among others).