Born beneath the black lung sky,
where coal dust clung to skin like birthright,
he was the thirteenth child
in a house of hunger and hymn.

The Valleys taught him
how to speak with his fists,
but it was his voice-
molten,deliberate-
that cracked open the world.

He did not belong
to the pit's throat,
though it called him
like a brother lost.

Words became his pickaxe.
Shakespeare his seam of gold.
On stage,
he became kings,
gods,
ghosts.
A boy who once ran errands for bread
now thundered
in velvet theatres
and on silver screens
Where royalty stood still
to watch.

Still,
he carried the mine inside-
its gravity,
its grief.
Whiskey soothed it.
So did rage.

He loved
like a storm.
Married fire,
twice.
Lost himself
in brilliance and ruin.

But always,
beneath the layers,
a boy from Pontrhydyfen-
the miner's son
who traded coal for cadence,
and carved eternity
from the marrow of his voice.