When Wendy’s American cousin, Trelawney, was initiated into the Gorsedh we had to be there to witness it. The Cornish weather did little to support its own cultural get-together, so bards, friends and family were squeezed into Hayle Academy.
(photo gorsedhkernow.org.uk)
GORSEDH 2022, HAYLE
The sun didn’t shine on Gorsedh 2022.
Indoors if wet, we assembled
Tradition within the modernity of Hayle Academy;
But the numbers didn’t stack up.
I find myself, amongst family,
Stuck amid the swelter and press of it;
Still Covid anxious and aware
And masked in Cornish tartan;
Over-cooked in a necessary raincoat
Outside of this happening; a peripheral.
The Bards amass – robes flapping
In the hurly-burly of assembly
Old friends, mostly old lives
Dedicated to Kernow
Are well-met since last time…
And lament those who have passed on
While they wait for the initiates,
Those shy debutantes, begowned
To descend from the first floor, where,
Kettled into a waiting room no doubt,
They will process into their destiny.
I am merely an observer amid
The dancing maids in pale green shifts
Who float like fritillaries in a soft breeze,
Both fidgety and eager to perform;
They carry garlands through the parting crowd
As they follow the circumspect Grand Bard
Who professes anxiety over his coming address.
A swathe of powder blue reveals itself
From beyond the clearing entrance
To this aperture of Cornishness.
I find myself there on the edge of it
Unable to take one eye off the WI cake stall.
©graylightfoot