I was here on the cliff at glan-y-mor, his reverie.

Below, the boathouse, washed a pastel shade

of lemon doused by sea mists of the Afan Taf

 

that meander into Carmarthen Bay. He sat and wrote

window open to the sea across the marsh from Black Scar

 the farm at Pentowyn, and Craig Ddu - Black Rock.

Lazy days, sun struck in summer, a flagon of bitter.
an empty bottle: his ty bach, when full he watered
the bushes. A sleep at noon and when the sun sat 

near the horizon over the Celtic Sea, it was time

for tea. Welcomed visitors: a sea breeze to waft
the heat away and Vernon who came to gaze

upon his Arthur, a warrior of words, who wielded
a pen as cleverly as the sword. To sit and read
to listen to the sedge warbler's call, an infinite

variety of series of ratchet trills and warbled
peeps. No one warbler's call the same, too complex

far beyond any mere composer's grasp

This is where he watched little boats bob, wind
waving reeds, lovers entwine, Polly Garter

and Gossamer Beynon from Llareggub. He could see

Captain Cat pull in lobster pots, listen to the terror
in his dreams. He liked to get away from her-indoors
the sudden fury of her fists, her insatiable demands

No Blodeuwedd she, no dainty flower. A passing
local could serve, she danced on a yellow shore
showing off her all, her twmpath her wares.

R. S. Thomas said of Vernon that coins rattling 

on the bank counter were to him like the splashing 

of the waves at Ginst Point. Robert Graves spoke 

 

of him as a man with hywl, and yet he spoke

no Welsh but the hywl is there, see it shine in: 

Rage, Rage against the Dying of the Light 

 

We grieve  with him for the loss of a father. Fame

had reached out to hold him in its grasp, sad that 

morphine administered by an inept physician took 

 

him. Remember how the fag hung from his pout, poems 

that trill like the sedge warbler's call, soak in the dreams 

of his lush women, bard of the bards of Laugharne.