Aubade

Aubade

for Dylan Thomas 

He does not know it but this will be his last
dawn walk along the coastal path. 

Dylan has come up to this field of pink-tipped
sheaves to say goodbye to the jigsaw 

of slate roofs and allotments that unspool
towards the sea. The tide looks lilac at this hour 

as it repeats its lines to the umbrella pines,
sentinels of this village for a century. Think Sicily 

with rain. He crosses the corn to the coastguard hut,
only his characters for company: Dai Peg

married a broom didn’t he? Mary Ann Sailors
spent so long shelling peas she never came back

to serve Jack the Butch that pint. Didn’t she turn into
a yellow meadow, the original Blodeuwedd? 

And was it one of the owls who shed his feathers
to quills and morphed into Lady Charlhoote

who spent ten years re-folking all our tales for us?
The terraced windows turn orange as the poet walks by,

the herring strung like bunting, wire through their eyes,
the boats keeping time in the harbour: the Deb,

the Luna, the Daniel. And there’s Pilchard-Jones
rounding the corner, Al di Farondo opening his hurdy gurdy,

Violet Lobster shuffling amongst her shellfish,
Captain Rhymer shutting the gate of Sunnydale,

Shannie Annie setting up her easel outside
Macaw Cottage. Who will sit for her today?

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch’s work has been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year as well as for the Michael Marks Award. Recipient of a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2005, Samantha was Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the National Wool Museum in 2012. She has taught creative writing at Oxford University and at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Her fourth poetry collection, Milk Wood Memoir, was published by Picador in May 2026.