A Hill Farmers Wife to her Absent Husband
I thought yesterday of the hedge you laid before you went to work in the mine, of the thin stems and the sharp thorns running level with the eye and rising as the ground rises from the river down by Cae Gwaelod. I thought of the pliant willow strips bound around the top of the hedge and the way you trimmed above the weaving for a clean edge to finish it. You said it was a plethen for our love as you washed the blood from the thorn gashes and I put on salve to help them heal. The trees are tall now. The leaves in autumn came showering down on the back garden where children play, they wish you all their love and hope we'll see you soon as you promised when you wrote. The sheep from Llwyn yr Eos broke in again. Mr Jones will speak to you about the hedge when you are home. I long to help you trim the thorns, take down wild growth, tuck it in tidy, see it all woven tight again. Your words when you made the hedge are still with me: "We weave our fences, know the ground that is ours, keep all that we have safely in"- cariad I wish it that it were so.