Mediations
And to one God says: Come
to me by numbers and
figures; see my beauty
in the angles between
stars, in the equations
of my kingdom. Bring
your lenses to the worship
of my dimensions: far
out and far in, there
is always more of me
in proportion. And to another:
I am the bush burning
at the centre of
your existence; you must put
your knowledge off and come
to me with your mind
bare. And to this one
he says: Because of
your high stomach, the bleakness
of your emotions, I
will come to you in the simplest
things, in the body
of a man hung on a tall
tree you have converted to
timber and you shall not know me.
— R. S. Thomas, Laboratories of the Spirit
Comments
I see you're an R.S. Thomas fan, poet of the hidden God. Why am I not surprised?
A couple of years ago I went to a lecture on Thomas given by the Archbishop of Wales Barry Morgan (Rowan's successor). The vote of thanks was given by a professor of English at Swansea, a friend of Thomas and (I believe) an executor of his work. Apparently there are a lot of unpublished poems about. He read one. I furiously copied it down. Here it is. (Don't tell anyone where you got it from! :)
Resurrection
Easter. The grave clothes of winter
are still here, but the sepulchre
is empty. A messenger
from the tomb tells us
how a stone has been rolled
from the mind, and a tree lightens
the darkness with its blossom.
There are travellers upon the road
who have heard music blown
from a bare bough, and a child
tells how the accident
of last year, a machine stranded
beside the way for lack
of petrol, is crowned with flowers.