Monday, March 12, 2007

Cos I like it...

R.S. Thomas. I love the poetry this man writes. Much of it is bleak and it has far more questions than answers. But it is shot through with something of the stillness of a man who lived in Wales and fiercely resisted the hustle and bustle that presses most of us from every side (he maintained that refridgerators were evil, let alone mobile phones).

This one's really pretty upbeat for R.S... And it's about God. See what you think.

Praise

I praise you because
you are artist and scientist
in one. When I am somewhat
fearful of your power,
your ability to work miracles
with a set-square, I hear
you murmuring to yourself
in a notation Beethoven
dreamed of but never achieved.
You run off your scales of
rain water and sea water, play
the chords of the morning
and evening light, sculpture
with shadow, join together leaf
by leaf, when spring
comes, the stanzas of
an immense poem. You speak
all languages and none,
answering our most complex
prayers with the simplicity
of a flower, confronting
us, when we would domesticate you
to our uses, with the rioting
viruses under our lens.

- R.S. Thomas

2 comments:

Aidan said...

...murmuring to yourself
in a notation Beethoven
dreamed of but never achieved...

SHABLAM! Wow, see what I think?
I think yeah.

Anonymous said...

umm...i'm not a poetry person generally but i like that. Yes. Somehow captures the magnificent inteligence of a very living and wonderful God.