Letter from Partrishow

Stephen Price

I have a recurring thought about time that I have never been able to articulate.

Kate Bush gets as close as I can with her immortal line, ‘I put this moment here’ in The Jig of Life.

I keep putting this moment here.

I place a flag at points and say, ’This is it. This one here. This is the furthermost point in time.

‘Please remember I said this, OK.. watch what happens!’

‘The harvester is near’

I tell myself we’re at the pinnacle.

This is now.

And as soon as it’s uttered, it’s a memory.

Days later, I say, ‘Remember we were at the peak… remember I placed that flag?’

We are always in the past.

I was at Partrishow two months ago with my sister and nephew, exploring the gravestones, marvelling at the ceiling, shifting props for the perfect photo, and that was ’now’ – that was the furthest point in time.

And now, today, I stand here with my greying dogs, reunited with Death.

That day, that moment I thought was peak, is past.

Lost breadcrumbs in the snow and the bellies of crows.

The photos I took in the moment pushed down by holiday snaps, photos of green beech, images of dogs less grey than they are today.

I put this moment here.

‘His blade is on your skin’

I met an old friend of an old friend the last time I was here.

Overlooked by Death, we talked about our craving for solace, for silence, for brotherhood and cymuned – something these walls once offered us all.

But we knew better.

I mentioned my irritability, my overwhelm and anger.

Even a mountain walk intruded by images on my phone, images in my head, from thousands of miles away.

Man’s brutality to man and animal.

A young man connected to to an IV drip burns alive

A little girl carries her sister for miles

A father holds his dead child, pulled from a fallen building

A starving horse lies in rubble

Stray dogs eat the carcass of a man

His antidote is a retro phone. How smart. He’s tuned out.

If only I could.

A holy well sits at the mountain’s foot.

A sure sign of lay lines, magic, old and eternal wisdom.

Framed by its gate, the church is as striking as the others who share her magic nearby.. the crooked church at Cwmyoy, the infamous and the hidden at Capel y Ffin and the abandoned Henllan.

In their pews, children still sing

Locals, all Welsh named, arrive for a wedding

The same return for a funeral

Each now lost to time in the moment I place here

A man paints a skeleton on the wall

Another writes a psalm

A mother grieves her child lost to war

Two old friends crave peace

I put this moment here.