RS Thomas man

RS Thomas man

Turn now to this man,

kneeling in his nothing night; pleading to the

silence of a cold atonement; this complex man,

ministering to the simple man, high in the fields

of a low field life; the stone church his fiefdom.

How we love this man wedded to their weathering.

How we love this hard-soft man of men, when

his words reign in the candlelight of their tears,

to cascade, drying down the lonely years,

staining his pages here and there, where

he questioned the dearth of his faith, and their

loneliness, stranded upon their death beds;

the people of his years, hardened in their land,

bowed under his dark sky; he under his question,

why, why am I still waiting for His answer?

What is my place in this, their place?

Forever on his knees he called repeatedly

upon the empty words, unanswered, gone to earth

in the wild hedgerows of his mind; and now, long

gone, way past this final peninsula, flying with

his birds, passing forever over the indifferent sea.

Now that he has released the hens from his wild pen,

We must ask for this man: was he not Welsh, he who

lived his days in the dereliction of their deprivation?

Had he not prayed for their indifference; forever asking,

what right have I to speak for them? At them?

When the crag trees bleed their black tears,

and the cottages crumble under my feet.

I hear the stones call, far away, in the black rain,

RS Thomas, man of the hills - come home again.