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