The Webcam on Yr Wyddfa

1
The tickets are purchased, the passport secured.
I am struck again by the ragged glamor
                                                                    of all foreign currency.

2
There is a webcam in Wales that does nothing all day
But transmit pictures of Yr Wyddfa, Mount Snowdon.
Indigo shadows shift their angles through the afternoon.
Clouds, without ever moving, appear in new places.

Another webcam rests its gaze on the rumpled greenery
Of the Llŷn Peninsula.
                                       Yet a third keeps watch
Over the valley of Nant Ffrancon, tenderly counting
The village lights as they awaken in the dusk.

3
The sun drapes sheer yellow scarves over Anglesey,
Over sheep folds, burial mounds, Caernarfon walls.
A coughing train rattles its way from the Menai Strait
Up the mountain passes of Llanberis and Bethgelert.

Between harassments of paperwork and rain, I catch
The webcam to Wales. I disembark, tighten my laces,
And begin to climb the stony slopes.
                                                                Later, at a pub,
I notice how the fire glows through the sides of my glass,
How the tiny writhing flames take the color of the ale.

RHINO. 2007: 137.