Folk Tale by R. S. Thomas

Prayers like gravel

flung at the sky’s

window, hoping to attract

the loved one’s

attention. But without

visible plaits to let

down for the believer

to climb up,

to what purpose open

that far casement?

I would

have refrained long since

but that peering once

through my locked fingers

I thought that I detected

the movement of a curtain.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Experimenting with an Amen (1986).

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