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Artists
Iestyn Tyne is the co-founder and co-editor of Y Stamp magazine and publications. He has published two collections of poetry and a pamphlet; his third collection of poetry and a novel for young adults will be published this year. He is one of the co-editors of the Welsh (plural) anthology of essays, due for publication in 2022. He lives in Caernarfon and works as a freelance writer, musician, translator and editor.
Osian Meilir is a freelance dance and movement artist based in Cardiff. Meilir works predominantly as a choreographer and performer working across Wales, the UK and Internationally. Culture, identity and community drives his artistic practice and he’s currently looking for further opportunities to research and create his own work.
Poem
yn y diwedd
Yn y diwedd, â’r un gangen ir yn y fforest bydredig
yn gollwng yr olaf o’i dail, beth fyddwn
yn wyneb y gwirionedd hwnnw? Gall galar
a chywilydd fod yn enwau gwahanol
ar yr un wylo. Hwyrach, ym marwnadu’r
munudau olaf, y bydd modd, o’r diwedd
i grymanu’r corff am onglau’r gwir,
taflu dwy fraich am wddf ein terfynoldeb.
Hynny, a gofyn, yn y nos anial, ddiwyneb:
beth yw’r awydd hwn sy’n fy nhynnu weithiau
i siglo ar ddibyn, rhwygo fy mrest ar agor
a chlywed y rhyferthwy’n chwibanu yn ogof fach
y galon? Gofyn: beth os mai dysgu sut i farw
yw’r unig ffordd o barhau i fyw?
Iestyn Tyne
in the end
In the end, as the one unwithered bough in the decaying forest
drops the last of its leaves, what shall we be
in the face of that truth? Grief
and shame can be different names
for the same weeping. It may be, in the elegies
of the final moments, that we shall be able at last
to scythe the body into the angles of truth,
to throw our arms around the neck of our finiteness.
That, and asking, into the desolate and faceless night:
What is this desire that draws me sometimes
to sway at a precipice, to rip open my chest
and hear the tempest whistle in the small cavern
of the heart? Asking: what if learning how to die
is the only way we can go on living?
Iestyn Tyne
am Ende
Am Ende, wenn der einzige unverdorrte Ast im verfallenden Wald
das letzte seiner Blätter fallen lässt, was werden wir sein
angesichts dieser Wahrheit? Kummer
und Scham können unterschiedliche Namen sein
für das gleiche Weinen. Es mag sein, dass wir in den Elegien
der letzten Augenblicke endlich
den Körper in die Winkel der Wahrheit schneiden können,
um unsere Arme um den Hals unserer Endlichkeit zu schlingen.
Das, und in die trostlose und gesichtslose Nacht zu fragen:
was ist dieses Verlangen, das mich manchmal anzieht,
an einem Abgrund zu schwanken, meine Brust aufzureißen
und den Sturm in der kleinen Höhle des Herzens pfeifen
zu hören? Frage: was wäre, wenn Sterbenlernen
unser einziger Weg ist zum Weiterleben?
Translation by Eluned Gramich