Tag Archives: R.S. Thomas

Love looks at them back.

love, poetry, , , ,

THE KINGDOM

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

-R.S. Thomas

salvia

We tower enormous.

poetry, technology,

EARTH

What made us think
it was yours? Because it was signed
With your blood, God of battles?
It is such a small thing,
Easily overlooked in the multitude
Of the worlds. We are misled
By perspective; the microscope
Is our sin, we tower enormous
Above it the stronger it
Grows. Where have your incarnations
Gone to? the flesh is too heavy
To wear you, God of light
And fire. The machine replaces
The hand that fastened you
To the cross, but cannot absolve us.

R.S. Thomas

 

People held out their thin arms.

love, poetry,

THE COMING

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows; a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
………………..On a bare
Hill, a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

-R.S. Thomas, 2013-2000

 

It was a time of stifling.

books, poetry, , ,

PERIOD

It was a time when wise men
Were not silent, but stifled
By vast noise.  They took refuge
In books that were not read.
Two counsellors had the ear
Of the public.  One cried ‘Buy’
Day and night, and the other,
More plausibly, ‘Sell your repose.’

R. S. Thomas, 1913 -2000 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With thanks to Stephen Pentz,
who has all the best poems.
Illustration by Johan van Hell.