Time Runs Out In Rhosybol

by Alix Warren
(Bull Bay, Amlwch)

Follow the signs for Rhosybol across the fields and between wind turbines standing idly by. The Rhosybol clock memorial stands in front of the village school.

Eight brave Anglesey men who gave their lives as sacrifices for their country, justice and freedom are listed under the clock.

How much notice have the generations of children playing behind the tower given to the grief in this handful of names?

Should they be told the stories of the heroic deeds of their great-grand parents or should the memories tick away down the long village street and be laid to rest in the mist of time?



NO TIME


Their names once so deeply etched into broken minds
are fading now with the ticking of time.
Their bodies lying in some foreign grave
have no use for the sticking plaster hours;
the wooden splint days mending the broken hearts back home,
the prescribed years curing the aching souls.

Time ran out for the men and boys a hundred years ago.
Time stopped in a blinding down of gears.
Time ceased to be anything but an agony hanging heavy.
Time suspended in no-man's land.

There was no time to pen the thoughts
and savour in one last kiss.
No time to hold close the future.
No time.
Now just the moving of the hands around the face,
Slowly out of time with the rest of the world.




†