The Absence por R. S. Thomas It is this great absence that is like a presence, that comp me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter from which someone has just
Song at the Year’s Turning por R. S. Thomas Shelley dreamed it. Now the dream The props crumble; the familiar wa Are stale with tears trodden under The heart’s flower withers at the Bury it then, in history’s sterile 1
Ninetieth Birthday por R. S. Thomas You go up the long track That will take a car, but is best On slow foot, noting the lichen That writes history on the page Of the grey rock. Trees are about
The Hill Farmer Speaks por R. S. Thomas I am the farmer, stripped of love And thought and grace by the land’ But what I am saying over the fie Desolate acres, rough with dew, Is, Listen, listen, I am a man li 1
This to Do por R. S. Thomas I have this that I must do One day: overdraw on my balance Of air, and breaking the surface Of water go down into the green Darkness to search for the door
The Village por R. S. Thomas Scarcely a street, too few houses To merit the title; just a way bet The one tavern and the one shop That leads nowhere and fails at th Of the short hill, eaten away
The Prisoner por R. S. Thomas ‘Poems from prison! About what?’ ‘Life and God.’ ‘God in prison? Friend, you trifle with me. His face, perhaps,
Acting por R. S. Thomas Being unwise enough to have marrie I never knew when she was not acti ‘I love you’ she would say; I hea Sigh. ‘I hate you’; I could never They were still there. She was lo
Poetry for Supper por R. S. Thomas “Listen, now, verse should be as n As the small tuber that feeds on m And grows slowly from obtuse soil To the white flower of immortal be “Natural, hell! What was it Chauc
A Welsh Testament por R. S. Thomas All right, I was Welsh. Does it I spoke a tongue that was passed o To me in the place I happened to A place huddled between grey walls Of cloud for at least half the yea