A Cantilever Psalm

[Chorus]
(A cappella)
The black mountain sings a coal-dust lullaby
Under the scaffolding of a Welsh sky

[Verse 1]
The Pantglas Junior School has a new coat of chalk-white paint.
A boy named Gethin draws a crooked saint
On the pavement with a piece of spoil tip slate.
It’s Thursday afternoon, October twentieth, he’s running late
For tea, but the air smells like damp fern and his future can wait.

[Pre-Chorus]
And the television aerials make a wire-frame sketch
Of a life held together by a promise and a latch.
Every window is a lit-up, golden patch
Against the dark, a slow and patient watch.

[Chorus]
The black mountain sings a coal-dust lullaby
Under the scaffolding of a Welsh sky
And all the blueprints for tomorrow are still dry.

[Verse 2]
A whippet barks from a yard on Moy Road.
He hears his mother’s voice, a familiar code,
“Gethin, it’s five o’clock! Come off that lonely node!”
He feels the chill off the slag, a weighty load
That’s always been there, just the way the river flowed.

[Bridge]
And Isherwood would say the structure’s flawed,
The sheer stress on the sandstone is ignored.
A final, quiet, unacknowledged chord.

[Outro]
The black mountain sings a coal-dust lullaby.
(A cappella)
The black mountain sings.