The Journey of the Taf
In 2009 we received the following communication from Mike Jenkins ( excerpted ) "Dear friends, Here is a poem which I recently wrote , which you can use on your site if you wish.". We proudly present Mike's poem below.
Jumping forward to 2018 we are also excited to include a short film based on the poem. 'Journey' is an Al Jones Weird Unit Film. 'Journey' will be premiered at the Cardiff International Film Festival on October 21st.
Journey of the Taf - Mike Jenkins
...
It begins in the centre of a mountain, waters breaking.
Nobody can say
exactly where
I come from :
parents Earth and Water
and the midwife Air.
Soon Fire, the sun
and everything
I feed upon.
This place of summits
called a watershed :
tears as light
stings my eyes.
I am just a stream
a nant, a toddler
finding my way
downslope, over the edge
of my mother
and with my father's constant
push of rain.
One like many others
till I start to cut teeth,
to haul stones
to erode the bed
and banks into a gorge.
I'm moving quicker
with steeper gradient,
my veins pulse
with the thrust of water
like a salmon at the point
of a journey across the world.
Soldiers with back-packs
and booted outward-bounders.
fight against my movement,
believing it's a challenge.
The children who paddle
squeal, splash and fling
their stones, sound like
an echo in my bones.
The Sun, my teacher,
comes and goes
promising destinations
and then, dips down low;
so any season
I could be bellyfull
or parched to a trickle.
Sheep sip clear water
heads bowed as in prayer
to a lost mother ;
or they're dead weight,
blood mingling with light,
soon a veil of flies.
Winding and wending around
scarp and spur
I reach a sudden drop,
a ledge of resistant rock:
the descents of childhood
then youth when greys
and blues and browns
become a frothing white ;
into the devil's punchbowl
and a whirling might.
Here secret swimmers come
to shed their many skins
and exuberant leapers
plunge into a scream
and come out laughing.
I am joined by others.
by brothers and I'm 'Fawr'
to their 'Fechan',
they emerge on the scene
demanding confluences,
driving deep into chasms
before we're all lost
in a man-made lake :
they term it 'llyn'
but it is reservoir,
a store of water
we are schooled into
( even in most vivid reflections
we wear our grey uniforms ).
I straighten, I widen,
my girth held by bridges
and above are viaducts
which span into another age.
Rocky islets - trees and bushes
growing from them - bring doubts
as I begin to be fixed,
my route determined by walls
and a weir which parodies
the earlier waterfalls.
Now salmon struggle upstream,
as I welcome the many heron
whose measured wing-beats
are like the peace I strive for
and the returning colours
of the kingfishers diving
like winged rainbows.
All this, as I am dumping-place
for trolleys, cans and bottles
like some cess-pit of the past,
some cholera-infested slum.
My parents seem so far away :
mountains aloof, quarried or conifered
and clouds that drop their load
then move on. They call me Taff
but I much prefer my Welsh name
(its what I call myself
and sounds like a stones edge).
Sometimes I seem to slumber along
all controlled by sluice and gate ;
sometimes Im far too busy
to notice those who gaze
like seagulls on the bars,
or those who cavort in heat ;
too busy with the flow, the downward trek.
I have too many shadows :
rail and trail, the once canal,
higher up the road obeys the curve.
Each shadow more purposeful
to traffic and trade;
I begin to wonder
why I move in such haste
and whether I will be
beyond it all, lost.
There are so many white weeds
hanging in the trees,
fluttering like flags of surrender
sometimes falling and filling
into tumours on my surface.
Just as cormorants are fishing
so I begin to sense the sea.
Silt accumulates in my bed,
slows me down after years
of scraping and scouring;
I begin to meander,
to waver across the floor,
the buildings start to ignore
my presence and there are outpourings
secretive and poisonous
which seep into my limbs.
Becoming sluggish, my murky waters
of blurred vision in the suburbs.
I try to remember stretching terraces
where the only vines were children
spreading tendrils of imagination.
The mud is gathering,
the flood-plains a resting-place
for birds on their journey south.
Anglers wade out to tempt
the fish with threaded flies.
I yawn into the city
past a parkland of lovers
and solitary office-workers,
I am broad and straight now
without the energy of gradient.
The grand stadium looms
as if it were a ship of state,
but finds no reflection.
I have almost forgotten
the distant mountains I came from,
the fact I am water at all.
Afon is a slow way of saying ,
it seems to suit me better
than the rip of river.
Already I can feel the saltiness
creep into my body
and seagulls mocking calls
hover then swoop all day.
At the Bay, Im trained and tamed.
On calmer days feel stagnant;
when theres a restless breeze
I begin to wave and voices
of my ancestors come back :
Once you were black, all thick
with dust like a colliers throat.
Once this was flats of mud
where waders and dippers
would pick for worms.
Now I am becalmed,
waiting for the gates to open,
where I will lose my name.
It is a different sun,
one that threatens to burn up,
to leave me dispersed
into the Channel and after.
A roof of slate, faade of glass,
the twirling pipes of a carousel
all bring back reminiscences
of pebbles carried, reflections borrowed,
stirrings under a waterfall.
It is night-time and the moon
is whole and crying out
like a barn-owl over moorland.
I must go and never know
what will become of me.
Mike Jenkins
Thanks, for re posting...I did miss it last year.
What a lovely poemBetty
I should point out that we received this last year. I just thought it would be nice to re-feature it for anyone who missed it first time around.
A link to the author's Red Poets page:- The Red Poets
I remember there being some useful material on river names in Kenneth Jackson's Language and HIstory in Early Britain, and I daresay a scout around the library shelves might throw something else out. I'll get back to you, unless anybody else has any good ideas.
Depends, I guess, on what you mean by "Pre-Celtic". I.e. do you mean Indo-European (common to common ancestor languages of Celtic, Latin, Germanic, etc.) or that it was existent on the island in Pre-Celtic times (i.e. used in whatever language was spoken before the Celtic languages took over). The first would seem plausible (since the elements are common throughout Europe); the second might be more difficult to prove. But I'm no linguist.
Sorry about that old chap....I thought it was a dupe. Been a hectic morning with computers freezing left right and center. Thanks for the info. Is there any suggestion anywhere that it is of pre-celtic origin?
My second post with the following information seems not to have made it through the moderation:1) the gist of the first citation I posted is that the rivers Taf, Tawe, Teifi, Team, Tame and Thames all have elements considered to mean 'flow', 'current', etc., which is common to many European and Celtic river names.2) the second suggests that 'taf' means 'spread (out), distributed, etc.' and gives comparative suggestions.
Concerning the etymology of 'taf', this is what's given on the BBC Cymru'r Byd website :"Mae afon Taf yn perthyn i grp o enwau afonydd Celtaidd ac Ewropeaidd sy'n golygu rhywbeth tebyg i 'llif' er y credid unwaith mai 'tywyll' oedd ei ystyr. Yn y grp yna mae afonydd Tawe, Teifi, Team, Tame a Thames. Mae'n ddiddorol nodi bod Caerdydd, Abertawe a Llundain ar afonydd gyda'r un tarddiad ieithyddol."And here's a citation from "Yr Haul" in 1881. The references to Puw indicate that we may need to reach for grains of salt here and there, but there's a lot here of interest, and the book is digitised by GoogleBooks if you want to look further." Aberteifi "Y mae rhai yn traethu mai gwreiddyn cyntaf yr enw hwn yw taf (ymdaenawl) a bod y gair ystafell yn perthyn iddo, sef y man a byddai ein hynafiaid yn taenu pethau at fywoliaeth a chysuron. Y mae tafod tafell &c yn cael eu cyfrif yn perthyn ir teulu hwn o eiriau; dyna farn Dr Puw. Y mae ereill yn barnu mai taw yw y gwreiddyn, sef yr hyn sydd yn gyfystyr a Tawe, Tawy &c fel yr ym wedi sylwi yn barod. Y mae yn wir fod w yn troi yn f gall taw a gwy fod yn wreiddiau yr enwau Taf a Teifi . Y mae y Dr Puw n rhoddi taen yn un ystyr i taw sef the state of being spread or extended felly gellir cyfuno y ddau ystyr hwn. Afon weddol araf ac ymdaenawl yw Teifi ran ei rhediad ac felly mae yr ystyr yn eithaf priodol iddi."Y mae genym amryw afonydd o r enw Taf , y rhai yn l pob tebygolrwydd sydd yr un ystyr a Teifi. Y m yn dra thebyg mai taen yw ystyr yr afon Tyne yn Lloegr."
The river in Carmathen is the Afon Taf, or River Taf not River Afon Tafhttp://streetmap.co.uk/place/River_Taf_Afon_Taf_in_Carmarthenshire_Sir_Gaerfyrddin_343611_310611.htmI think you are being confused by the common 'trying to save sign space' that goes on in Wales when putting both English and Welsh on signs - ie rather than put "Jones Park - Parc Jones" they put "Parc Jones Park" which seems a bit wierd until you work out what they are trying to achieve.Also, Taf seems to mean "Still and Deep Flowing"http://www.fforestfawrgeopark.org.uk/understanding/river-names