Plain song of owl
moonlight between cruciform
shadows of hunting.
She sings again
closer
in the sycamore,
her coming quieter
than the wash
behind the wave,
her absence darker
than privacy
in the leaves’ tabernacle.
Compline. Vigil.
Stations of the dark.
A flame floats on oil
in her amber eye.
Shoulderless shadow
nightwatching.
Kyrie. Kyrie.
by Gillian Clarke
from New Poems
Evans? Yes, many a time
I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang
Accompaniment to the black kettle’s
Whine, and so into the cold
Dark to smother in the thick tide
Of night that drifted about the walls
Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.
It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me; not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.
by R. S. Thomas
from Poetry for Supper (1958)
Rambling At The Bridge Head 