It was warm
Inside, but there was
Pain there, I came out
Into the cold wind
Of April. There were birds
In the brambles’ old,
Jagged iron, with one striking
Its small song. To the west,
Rising from the grey
Water, leaning one
On another were the town’s
Houses. Who first began
That refuse: time’s waste
Growing at the edge
Of the clean sea? Some sailor,
Fetching up on the
Shingle before wind
Or current, made it his
Harbour, hung up his clothes
In the sunlight; found women
To breed from – those sick men
His descendants. Every day
Regularly the tide
Visits them with its salt
Comfort; their wounds are shrill
In the rigging of the
Tall ships.
With clenched thoughts,
That not even the sky’s
Daffodil could persuade
To open, I turned back
To the nurses in their tugging
At him, as he drifted
Away on the current
Of his breath, further and further,
Out of hail of our love.
.
by R. S. Thomas
from Not That He Brought Flowers (1968)
Rambling At The Bridge Head 