Lleu

        When you were an eagle
        And hung in a tree,
        flesh falling to field,
        slipping between the worlds
        invisibly
        came a pig, transforming
        flesh back to flesh

            * * *

        O little pig
        so long I have endured pain
        I am worn and weary

        O little pig
        I am neither alive nor dead
        Rhiannon’s birds call over the waters

        O little pig
        the wild one teaches me
        like Myrddin I long to be free

        O little pig
        I am full of fear,
        carry my news to Gwydion

            * * *
        Then you were a man
        with a long spear
        to pierce stone;
        like an eagle’s beak
        it tore flesh from bone.


{This conflates verses ascribed to Myrddin in the Black Book of Carmarthen and part of the story in the Fourth Branch of Y Mabinogi, and more besides. For which conflations I humbly claim poetic licence.}