‘God’s fool, God’s jester’ by R. S. Thomas

God’s fool, God’s jester

capering at his right hand

in torment, proving the fallacy

of the impassible, reminding

him of omnipotence’s limits.

.

I have seen the figure

on our human tree, burned

into it by thought’s lightning

and it writhed as I looked.

.

A god had no alternative

but himself. With what crown

plurality but with thorns?

Whose is the mirthless laughter

at the beloved irony

at his side? The universe over,

omniscience warns, the crosses

are being erected from such

material as is available

to remorse. What are the stars

but time’s fires going out

before ever the crucified

can be taken down?

Today

there is only this one option

before me. Remembering,

as one goes out into space,

on the way to the sun,

how dark it will grow,

I stare up into the darkness

of his countenance, knowing it

a reflection of the three days and nights

at the back of love’s looking-

glass even a god must spend.

.

.

by R. S. Thomas

from Counterpoint; 3. Crucifixion (1990)

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‘The Nativity? No’ by R.S. Thomas

Text above the poem in the book

 The Nativity? No.
 Something has gone wrong.
 There is a hole in the stable
 acid rain drips through
 onto an absence. Beauty
 is hoisted upside down.
 The truth is Pilate not
 lingering for an answer.
 The angels are prostrate
 'beaten into the clay'
 as Yeats thundered. Only Satan beams down,
 poisoning with fertilisers
 the place where the child
 lay, harrowing the ground
 for the drumming of the machine-
 gun tears of the rich that are
 seed of the next war.
 
 
 By R. S. Thomas
 from Counterpoint (1990) 2. Incarnation 

‘God smiled. The controls’ by R. S. Thomas

God smiled. The controls

were working; the small

eaten by the large, the large

by the larger. One problem

remained: the immunity

of a species. ‘Easy,’

the jester at his side

whispered, indicating

the air’s window that the germs

thronged. God opened it a crack, and the human edifice

was dismantled. Among the ruins

one, stupider than the rest,

sat, seeing history’s wheel

idle, putting a hand out, ready

to start it all over again.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Counterpoint (1990)