{"id":7761,"date":"2022-12-01T13:04:35","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T13:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/?p=7761"},"modified":"2025-05-13T07:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T07:56:11","slug":"robert-minhinnick-llia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/7761\/robert-minhinnick-llia\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Minhinnick: Llia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Llia<\/strong><\/p>\n

(i.m. Chris Torrance)<\/p>\n

Not<\/span>
\nfar from here
\nin the last dark place in Wales
\nthey killed
\nthe last wolf.<\/p>\n

Ice<\/span>
\nwas everywhere.
\nA glacier\u2019s gimlet
\nand its moraines
\nstill visible.<\/p>\n

Yet<\/span>
\nin this corner of the sky
\nstars are feral
\nand air teems with myths,
\ntheir tapestries lit against military megaliths.<\/p>\n

Above<\/span>
\nus behind us and sometimes below
\nlie the crooked anvil
\nthe road of spilt milk
\nthe waterfall\u2019s blizzard.<\/p>\n

Least<\/span>
\nof our rivers is Llia
\nyet beyond us
\nconstellations converge and creatures
\ncontort across the sky atlas.<\/p>\n

But<\/span>
\nas night creeps
\nout of Maen Llia\u2019s shadow
\ndaylight despite its sacrifice
\nwill be restored.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ORDNANCE SURVEY <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

GRID REFGERENCE SN92651660 – \u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

AFON LLIA.<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

I recall driving Chris Torrance to Llandrindod Wells for one of the first meetings of the old \u2018Welsh Union of Writers\u2019. There were other people in the vehicle but I found Torrance largely incommunicative. And as so many writers do, he proved an unlikely union member.<\/p>\n

Maybe to create conversation I might have told him a few years earlier I had sought out his \u2018Acrospirical Meanderings in a Tongue of the Time\u2019. But frankly we didn\u2019t speak much. Now I think he might have been shy.<\/p>\n

Decades later I learned of the appearance of Torrance\u2019s \u2018complete\u2019 \u2018The Magic Door\u2019, and purchased a copy. Dipping into this I discovered references to the Afon Llia, a small river \u2018wholly contained with the Brecon Beacons National Park\u2019.<\/p>\n

This \u2018least river\u2019 runs close to Ystradfellte, the turning to which on the A4059 I always note when visiting my daughter and her family in Cwm Bach, near Glasbury on Wye.<\/p>\n

With my grandchildren I\u2019ve recently revisited the Ystradfellte waterfalls, referenced in the poem \u2018Llia\u2019, along with \u2018the last wolf\u2019, starlight and darkness \u2013 references to a recent Seren Books publication on astronomy.<\/p>\n

I may also have told Chris Torrance that my twin sister, Carol, visited him (with Nigel Jenkins) at Glynmercher Isaf. Maybe the last time I communicated with Chris was to apologise for a Friends of the Earth Cymru forced cancellation of a reading of his.<\/p>\n

I wish this tribute to Chris Torrance well.<\/p>\n

RM 1.11.22<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Robert Minhinnick lives in Porthcawl. His volume of short prose, Delirium<\/em> (Seren) is launched there on November 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

He has won the \u2018Wales Book of the Year\u2019 on three occasions. His latest volume of poetry, Diary of the Last Man<\/em> (Carcanet) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot award. He organizes the \u2018Green Room\u2019 series of performances for Sustainable Wales \/ Cymru Gynaliadwy, for which he is an advisor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Click here to go back to:\u00a0Contributors and Links to Pages 1 – 4<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Llia (i.m. Chris Torrance) Not far from here in the last dark place in Wales they killed the last wolf. Ice was everywhere. A glacier\u2019s gimlet and its moraines still visible. Yet in this corner of the sky stars are feral and air teems with myths, their tapestries lit against military megaliths. Above us behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[66,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/images.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-21b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7761"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8281,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7761\/revisions\/8281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}