Under Milk Wood

The small town of Llareggub slumbers

‘you can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.’

Mr Edwards the draper, Miss Price and Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard widow, are all dreaming in their sleeping houses.

‘Time passes. Listen. Time passes.’

The sky begins to lighten and Dai Bread has no time for breakfast. Polly Garter, the Reverend Ely Jenkins and Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard stretch and stir. To work, to school, to polish doorsteps and make the tea. In butterfly collars and straw hats, in flannel shirts and flowery blouses; the smells and sounds of the day begin. Seaweed and onions, leeks and bones; Willy Nilly delivers the post with a rat-a-tat, the cry of a curlew and the cry of a child, a pigeon coos and Mr.Pugh’s bought a new book.

‘The sunny slow lulling afternoon yawns and moons through the dozy town. The sea lolls, laps and idles in, with fishes sleeping in its lap. The meadows still as Sunday, the shut-eye tasselled bulls, the goat-anddaisy dingles, nap happy and lazy.’

The day draws in and lamps are lit, Lord Cut-Glass winds his clocks. Cherry Owen heads to the Sailors Arms where the clock has stopped at 11.30 and ‘Lily Smalls is up to Nogood Boyo in the wash-house’.

Dylan Thomas weaves life through one spring day in the characters of Llareggub; their humour and bitterness, dreams and desires are caught in their daily actions and snippets of conversation. First performed in 1953, as a play for voices, each character has their own drama to unfold. I read my beautiful copy from Penhaligon Press while listening to Richard Burton’s reading on YouTube, and read it in March for Paula’s Dewithon24

‘The thin night darkens. A breeze from the creased water sighs the streets close under Milk waking Wood.’