PETER THABIT JONES has authored sixteen books, including the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village New York with Aeronwy Thomas. He and Aeronwy Thomas did a six weeks poetry reading tour across America in 2008. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. He has received a number of awards, including the Eric Gregory Award for Poetry (The Society of Authors, UK), The Royal Literary Fund Award (UK), an Arts Council of Wales Award, the 2016 Ted Slade Award for Service to Poetry (UK), and the 2017 Homer: European Medal for Art and Poetry. His poem ‘Kilvey Hil’ is incorporated into a stained-glass window in Saint Thomas School, Swansea, Wales. He has been annual summer writer-in-residence in Big Sur, California, since 2010.
Two of his dramas for the stage have premiered in America and the UK. His opera libretti for Luxembourg composer Albena Petrovic Vratchanska have premiered at the Philarmonie Luxembourg, the National Opera House Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, the Theatre National Du Luxembourg, and the Sofia Opera and Ballet in Bulgaria. Further information: www.peterthabitjones.com
STONES
Stones take to each other naturally,
Like a family of sleeping creatures,
The large ones accommodate little ones,
To create a colony of hardness;
They rest in centuries of stark stillness;
They are elephant-heavy to lush grass.
Their colours employ the afternoon sun;
They are as warm as loaves from an oven.
Each one embodies its personal death;
They are cobbled memories of the sea;
They are the solid language of labour:
Each one weathered to a perfect image.
They rest, innocent of their history,
Like a grey display of featureless skulls.
They have tasted our sweat and absorbed our blood.
They rise and fall, symbols of man’s conscience.
Their persistence has sculptured their silence;
They hint that their souls haunt other planets.
They are magnets for our primitive thoughts;
They are the armour of truths beyond us.
They shape our built fears of an afterlife,
They could tempt us into acts of worship.
© 2024 Peter Thabit Jones
