All men. Or shall we say,
not chauvinistic, all
people, it is all
people? Beasts manure
the ground, nibble to
promote growth; but man,
the consumer, swallows
like the god of mythology
his own kind. Beasts walk
among birds and never
do the birds scare; but the human,
that alienating shadow
with the Bible under the one
arm and under the other
the bomb, as often
drawn as he is repelled
by the stranger waiting for him
in the mirror – how
can he return home
when his gaze forages
beyond the stars? Pity him,
then, this winged god, rupturer
of gravity's control
accelerating on and
outward in the afterglow
of a receding laughter?
by R. S. Thomas
from No Truce With The Furies (1995)
Tag: duality
Памятник (The Monument) by Vladislav Khodasevich
I am an end and a beginning.
So little spun from all my spinning!
I’ve been a firm link nonetheless;
with that good fortune I’ve been blessed.
New Russia enters on her greatness;
they’ll carve my head two-faced, like Janus,
at crossroads, looking down both ways,
where wind and sand, and many days…
by Владислав Фелицианович Ходасевич (Vladislav Felitsianovich Khodasevich)
translated by Michael Frayn
Rambling At The Bridge Head 