A Poem by / Cerdd gan Penelope Shuttle

Translated by / Cyfieithwyd gan Siân Melangell Dafydd

last evening on the planet

we stand on thin ice with all our machines some with, some without ambiguity ash is falling quiet as Holy Thursday the spirits go by in their invisible cloaks they won’t save us they make their way across the ice they cross the small meadow they take everything with them

y noson olaf ar y blaned

safwn ar rew tennau ni â’n holl beiriannau rhai yn amwys droedio, eraill ddim, lludw’n cwympo’n dawel fel Dydd Iau Cablyd pasio heibio wna’r ysbrydion mewn clogynnau anweledig ni ddônt i’n hachub ni dim ond ymlwybro ar rew croesi’r weirglodd fechan, a mynd â phopeth gyda nhw.

Penelope Shuttle lives in Cornwall.  Her thirteenth collection, Lyonesse, appeared from Bloodaxe Books in June 2021, and was Observer Poetry Book of the Month. Noah, a pamphlet, appeared in September 2023 from Broken Sleep Books.  She is President of the Falmouth Poetry Group. Lyonesse was long listed for the Laurel Prize.