Easter by R.S. Thomas

Easter. I go to church
to proclaim with my fellows
I believe in the Ressurection -
of what? Here everything
is electric and automatic.
In April a myriad bulbs
are switched on as flowers
incandesce; a new generation
of creatures rehearses
its genetic code. All this is easy.
Earth is a self-regulating
machine; everything happens
because it must. My faith
is in the inevitability
of creation. There will come a day -
dust under a dry sun,
ashes under its incineration...
is there somewhere in all
the emptiness of the universe
a fertile star where the old
metaphors wil apply, where
the bugling daffodil will sound
abroad not the last post, but
a gush of music out of an empty tomb? 

by R.S. Thomas
from Unpublished Poems

Advertisements

‘Top left an angel’ by R.S. Thomas

 Top left an angel
 hovering. Top right the attendance
 of a star. From both
 bottom corners devils
 look up, relishing
 in prospect a divine
 meal. How old at the centre
 the child's face gazing
 into love's too human
 face, like one prepared
 for it to have its way
 and continue smiling?
 

 
 By R. S. Thomas
 from Counterpoint 2. Incarnation (1990) 

‘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 

Amen by R. S. Thomas

It was all arranged:

the virgin with child, the birth

in Bethlehem, the arid journey uphill

to Jerusalem. The prophets foretold

it, the scriptures conditioned him

to accept it. Judas went to his work

with his sour kiss; what else

could he do?

A wise old age,

the honours awarded for lasting,

are not for a saviour. He had

to be killed; salvation acquired

by an increased guilt. The tree,

with its roots in the mind’s dark,

was divinely planted, the original fork

in existence. There is no meaning in life,

unless men can be found to reject

love. God needs his martyrdom.

The mild eyes stare from the Cross

in perverse triumph. What does he care

that the people’s offerings are so small?

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Laboratories of the Spirit (1975)

The Empty Church by R. S. Thomas

They laid this stone trap

for him, enticing him with candles,

as though he would come like some huge moth

out of the darkness to beat there.

Ah, he had burned himself

before in the human flame

and escaped, leaving the reason

torn. He will not come any more

 

to our lure. Why, then, do I kneel still

striking my prayers on a stone

heart? Is it in hope one

of them will ignite yet and throw

on its illuminated walls the shadow

of someone greater than I can understand?

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Frequencies (1978)

Resurrection by R. S. Thomas

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 roads

who have heard music blown

from a bare bough, and a child

tells us how the accident

of last year, a machine stranded

beside the way for lack

of petrol is covered with flowers.

 

by R. S. Thomas