Back From Swansea.. *sigh* - Little Moon Elephant

Today was the final day of my week holiday in Wales, and the homesickness of Swansea life has hit me hard.

Whilst on the coach home (a six and a half hour long journey, just saying), I was reminiscing about the previous seven days spent in my hometown, and all the emotions and memories of which I had partly relived. This got me thinking about my young life at Brynhyfryd*, my primary school, and all the Welsh songs and poems we were constantly taught. My train of thought eventually led me to remember a poem I once recited for a competition in front of the whole school (before I inevitably fainted), and the broken half-forgotten words of which the poem entailed.

The second I got 'home' to London (note the quotation marks, *sigh*), I spent a while trying to make sense of the words, eventually mismatching them together to find the exact poem. It's called A Path To Wales and was written by someone called Sanjay Amruce. Honestly, I don't think the poem is of the highest standard, but I empathize with it all the same. It holds the magic and intrigue that I felt towards Swansea when I was young and Welsh (and somewhat naive), and I still sort of love it.

A Path To Wales by Sanjay Amruce

An old woman set me on a path to Wales

Where dragons roamed and Knights had homes

and wizards lived in epic poems

and maidens leapt from burning homes.

I set on a path from sea to lair

and picked up strands of broken hair

I breathed in air that wasn't there

and watched as sea was pushed by air.

An old woman set me on a path to Wales

where broken swords lie with dragons tales

and the waters sweet and never stale

and where I'll live and never ail.

Later reading it now, five and a half years after I had first been introduced to the poetry of Amruce, I'm beginning to understand it more. It's not just a black-and-white simplistic poem of a magic-ridden nation (although partly it is), but of a young man's interpretation. I'm not quite sure how to word my thoughts towards it, but to me it just shows Wales as more. It's not the existing Wales, but the Wales behind the fairytales and stories and myths and legends. It's what's there but.. isn't.

Anyway, despite me being utterly chuffed that I'd found such a memory-ridden poem, I now have a whole forty-seven days until I can go back down to Swansea, as of which I'm really looking forward to as I have a wedding to go to and my Welsh friends to meet and my First-Kiss-Guy to see - I'm so excited.