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R. S. Thomas

R. S. Thomas

Reflections

The furies are at home
in the mirror; it is their address.
Even the clearest water,
if deep enough can drown.
 
Never think to surprise them.
Your face approaching ever
so friendly is the white flag
they ignore. There is no truce
 
with the furies. A mirror’s temperature
is always at zero. It is ice
in the veins. Its camera
is an X-ray. It is a chalice
 
held out to you in
silent communion, where gaspingly
you partake of a shifting
identity never your own.

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She is young. Have I the right Even to name her? Child, It is not love I offer Your quick limbs, your eyes; Only the barren homage
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It is a matter of a black cat On a bare cliff top in March Whose eyes anticipate The gorse petals; The formal equation of
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And one said, This man can sing; Let’s listen to him. But the othe… Dirt on his mind, said, No, let’s Queer him. And the first, being w… Consented. So the Thing came
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I Look Out Over the Timeless Sea

I look out over the timeless sea over the head of one, calendar to time’s passing, who is now open at the last month, her hair wintry… Am I catalyst of her mettle that,
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So beautiful—God himself quailed at her approach: the long body cur… like the horizon. Why had he made her so? How would it be, she said, leaning towards him, if instead of
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Coming home was to that: The white house in the cool grass Membraned with shadow, the bright… Of stream that was its looking—gla… And smoke growing above the roof
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