The Adar Llwch Gwin or the Egg by Elis Montgomery
50 lines
Issue 3 (Fall/Winter 2023)
when you were my mother you bundled me
and your life savings and chartered a draig
to bear us south—the leftover coins
sang between wing beats and we were
chimes seeking asylum, at home on the
wind until you found a place to raise me, head
still cloud-kissed but feet grounded
when I was your mother I built our home
at the apex of Pen y Fan so I could
show you the world, and when that world
loomed too large I led us to the edge—
we toed the rift and drank clouds—we
screamed into the void and found our voices
by losing them
when you were my mother you found me
puddled in Tŷ Canol moss, lured by fairy
fire and cowed by crooked ash limbs—
you had me walk deeper, showed me what
waited beyond walls built of fear—on
the other side I gave each polecat my name
and found an ally in all that is wild
when I was your mother I brought you to
where the bodiless live in peace with
the bodied—you heard meteoric cawr
footsteps, the fogged sigh of a cyhyraeth
in twilight—you watched the pwca
reshape its skin and you struck up
a truce with your own flesh
when you were my mother you charmed us
inflammable, had us scaling Yr Wyddfa
boiling over—we erupted with it, leapt
like we were the bright surge searing—
we sledded magma currents down
to the valley and this is how I learned
to sweat and rage
when I was your mother I taught you
the elements and the gods, the things that grow
and can be grown—you bled questions,
you wondered about birds, you wondered
what came first, the adar llwch gwin or
the egg, and I told you sometimes the question
weighs more than the answer
now I don’t want to miss any of it with you
don’t want to miss any of it with me
but maybe it’s a blessing
the beginning’s murky—
we don’t need to know which one of us came first:
we won’t need to know the end
anytime soon