They seemed to be enjoying the late afternoon sun, as those I could see all faced it most of the time. Their presence lent an odd sense of anticipation to the landscape, as though some formal event in which they were to take part was about to begin. But nothing happened. They remained for awhile, then one by one flew away, leaving me with the feeling that something was undone, that though the day would end it would remain somehow incomplete. I returned indoors, but the afternoon's sudden emptiness stayed in my mind. I feel it now, in the air arched over my roof. I wonder if nightfall will drive it away?
Sunday Verse
Probing
by R S Thomas
No one would know you had lived,
but for my discovery
of the anonymous undulation
of your grave, like the early swelling
of the belly of a woman
who is with child. And if I entered
it now, I would find your bones
huddled together, but without
flesh, their ruined architecture
a reproach, the skull luminous
but not with thought.
Would it help us to learn
what you were called in your forgotten
language? Are not our jaws
frail for the sustaining of the consonants'
weight? Yet they were balanced
on tongues like ours, echoed
in the ears' passages, in intervals when
the volcano was silent. How
tenderly did the woman handle
them, as she leaned her haired body
to yours? Where are the instruments
of your music, the pipe of hazel, the
bull's horn, the interpreters
of your loneliness on this
ferocious planet?
We are domesticating
it slowly; but at times it rises
against us, so that we see again
the primeval shadows you built
your fire amongst. We are cleverer
than you; our nightmares
are intellectual. But we never awaken
from the compulsiveness of the mind's
stare into the lenses' furious interiors.