19/04/2025
Apologies in advance to the Welsh language - I'll get this translated properly when I can .......
“I Love the Land / Dwi’n Caru’r Tir”
(for the valleys, for unity, for a better way)
I love the land
Dwi’n caru’r tir
The way the hills hold silence,
the way the sky always seems to remember something..maybe even our words
I love the sound of names I’m still learning,
and the feel of paths worn by stories...the love songs and journeys, the skylarks and murmurs
I came here with open hands,
not to take,
but to grow roots.
To listen.
To try.
Dwi’n dysgu’r iaith – yn araf iawn.
Weithiau, yn sownd fel plentyn saith oed,
yn arafu, yn camu, yn dechrau eto.
I’m learning the language — so slowly.
Sometimes stuck at a seven-year-old’s level,
slowing down, stumbling, starting again.
But I do start again.... well eventually
Because it matters.
Because it’s beautiful.
Because meeting each other in our own words
is one way the world might heal.
My grandfather walked this way too —
through the big valleys of the South,
the valleys that built the world.
He toiled, and worked, and breathed the dust,
and still loved the light between the terraced streets and the sky.
His story is under my feet —
and now I walk, too... well stumble and crongle and stumble some more
We don’t need to fear each other.
We don’t need to judge before we’ve listened.
We don’t need to repeat old wrongs
just because they were done to us.
Trite? Well never mind
There is another way.
We can build it — slowly, bravely, together.
Right here.
Right now.
Choose.
Love or hate?
Caru neu casáu?
The land is watching.
Y tir sy’n gwylio.
And still,
I love the land.
Dwi’n caru’r tir.
But does it love me?
Yes the land does
All land - it loves us all
We can learn a lot from the land ...and learn we must
