Exorcised stones sing at Abercynon, and creep their cobbled coal, bending turf in smooth awe. As the boat moves south towards Cefn Glas to the east we see the Taff-rushed rocks below. Proceed with me, crop epoch pink. Islets rarely matrix out.

 

On most maps the name does not appear. It's Ynysfeirig, The Basin, Navigation, Aberdare Junction. From the old peat breezes a map digs out. Heard on the Taf in a dark ridge.

 

Down to the Basin with us then. Pontypridd in the dread. In the land the old waters.

 

As the boat proceeds around the loop we see evidence of quarrying high to the west. Disted closions. We breathe moonlight brawling in swirling. River turns east and begins its canyon horseshoe around Quakers Yard.

 

Drippled morning: flannel shivering. Morning Mrs Hanman, my father cries. Pail o tea for you and the lads and welcome. No time lady. Got iron for the Basin and we’re running late.

 

On through Quakers with the whiskered wind. Stocked silver locality boiling. We got farther saw beyond her. On to Abercynon, on, on to the loading wharves. Sigilaring bogmarsh lakes dusk. Body of the ruins of Light, soon and clear.

 

*

 

 

 

Foggestic: hillisions turbing. Long Cefn Glas loop ends at Cefnglas lock. Head of the descent into Abercynon. Abercynon in her swirling ankers. Scarcely root-cellular. Filmy scarped with its way holes. Basin pyrites palm-like.

 

Horse grass. Coral furnaceouses. The windswept hill of Five Locks is still marked Incline Top on maps of the district. Glen bargees sand through Abercynon with vallecular grace. Navigation now on a half-mile level.

 

The boat begins to lock steeply down through the next three sets of staircase pairs. Drophammer of horse lagoons. Scrub phase clouds. Depth of their intermediate gate as the boat sinks down. The narrows a bed of stones. Clifted out on Taff. Feldspathic.

 

As we exit the tail of Lock 17 the canal enters a wide pool. From the glen the ice shrieks, unspeaking and crippled to stiffen viscous rust.

 

A small canal community survives here on the dry dock. Houses in the heave, growth the mangrove. Names of locks here, Lock Odyn, Lock Stackhouse, refer to the lime kiln and lime storehouse near the mason's yard.

 

Heaped spleenwort. Spirituated. We work the windlass, raise the paddles. Blueblack pyriding scareous they go to the green morainic bellflower pimpernel. Foaminated with frills.

 

The canal reaches the bottom of the lock flight at Lock Isaf. The old grey stones fed full of spirit. I hear its situality puffy crustacean, colloids disdainful. Laden barges go through the lock behind Calfaria flats. Horse grazes on grass near bus-stop. Terraceous. Wharved of head. We nearshy.

 

*

 

Bonal sheepstone, aboulder ropen. Rave us moons. Jaw barge clostle regrow. At the bottom of the Elevens the canal turns south-east, chewing over bargees flaring icicles. Under the railway incline, over the aqueduct, over the Taff.

 

On, on in a nectar of clanghammers. As we draw near platforms, shovels to the mountain slide past explosions. Ledges drip bluebells and a snipe nest above us drips silver in the shovels.

 

Navvies scarecrowed over icebreakers, iron and clear, as we slide. The trees I saw beyond heard their hanging on a shriek of tobacco. Flannel shirts open to the moon. Silver to the death. Soapy arms sweating over frozen land.

 

We watch unspeaking as a barge slides past. Bargees nod briefly, brown and bulging. The great railway washtub in a window-shriek of sweating houses as we swing past above them, loading gloom, on down all twink.

 

Take her slow, my father calls. Furnacemen wind-bright from the prow, fire and neck-ties. The navvies straighten with knives of tram, muck-red to the whisper as we pass. And the lads glowing in the trees nod dusk in the stones.

 

*

 

 

 

Outlying bones of Martin’s Terrace sawn by sheep, where arms of locks are made from trunks of elm and oak. The lower jaw is the door. Road from a brooklet rising. Pond body of main road, animals straying.

 

One known inn name. A tense mushroom wind. Canal an algal trace. Here we are, tie up. My father lights a fire to thaw us and we gather round. What you think, bach? The Basin place acid: vaporite cemetery. Its foot of elm ascending to defiled forks.

 

Time kiln: the grey stones peeping and foaming. Trees of the ridge above distilled. Song of death for the barge, he says. The horse is out the steam engine in. River moonless night-blue flame of day. The Taf has put up the hill beneath, and the Dark has put up a tent. Juts from the trees mourn its graveyard nestle. My father bites deep into his loaf and chews.

 

Birthplace to confluence. Light amongst grass, rushes garbed. Stock still my father stands on the prow. I shiver, gripping myself. Watching my father as he cups his hands to his pipe. The Taf has pierced with dread. In slopes on the depth no one knows. Homes of marrow gleam. The glen all turf and flame. Grooled. I hear his voice. Not in echo, loud and clear. Wait for me, he says.