Poet R.S. Thomas
On this Good Friday, we also celebrate 100 years since the birth of R.S. Thomas, one of Wales' greatest poets. (He was also an Anglican priest.) It has been said that Thomas found communicating with God hard, indeed many even thought him an athiest but I think this is to miss the point completely. Read his works and you will soon discover that Thomas used his poetry to reveals his 'version' of God. A God that shows Himself in small doses if you will, through nature which was featured heavily in his beautiful work.
Work, that much like my own poetry, was not written with a solid idea or agenda in mind before putting pen to paper, but words and imagery that unfolded as soon as he wrote. What I like to call 'living poetry'. It really is a joy to read.
Night Sky by R.S. Thomas
What they are saying is
that there is life there, too:
that the universe is the size it is
to enable us to catch up.
They have gone on from the human:
that shining is a reflection
of their intelligence. Godhead
is the colonisation by mind
of untenanted space. It is its own
light, a statement beyond language
of conceptual truth. Every night
is a rinsing myself of the darkness
that is in my veins. I let the stars inject me
with fire, silent as it is far,
but certain in its cauterising
of my despair. I am a slow
traveller, but there is more than time
to arrive. Resting in the intervals
of my breathing, I pick up the signals
relayed to me from a periphery I comprehend.
