R. S. Thomas Quotes

Art is recuperation from time. I lie back convalescing upon the prospect of a harvest already at hand.

You have to imagine
a waiting that is not impatient
because it is timeless.

Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer Said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, Limp as bindweed, if it break at all Life's iron crust Man, you must sweat And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build Your verse a ladder.

It is too late to start For destinations not of the heart. I must stay here with my hurt.

The furies are at home
in the mirror; it is their address.
Even the clearest water,
if deep enough can drown.
Never think to surprise them.
Your face approaching ever
so friendly is the white flag
they ignore. There is no truce

with the furies. A mirror’s temperature
is always at zero. It is ice
in the veins. Its camera
is an X — ray. It is a chalice

held out to you in
silent communion, where gaspingly
you partake of a shifting
identity never your own.

... the silence
Holds with its gloved hand
The wild hawk of the mind.

In the silence that is his chosen medium of communication and telling others about it in words. Is there no way not to be the sport of reason?

Why are my hands this way That they will not do as i say? Does no God hear when I pray?

Even God had a Welsh name: He spoke to him in the old language; He was to have a peculiar care For the Welsh people. History showed us He was too big to be nailed to the wall Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him Between the boards of a black book.

There is blood in my veins That has run clear of the stain Contracted in so many loins.

From the body at its meal’s end
and its messmate whose meal is beginning,
Gloria.
From the early and late cloud, beautiful and deadly
as the mushroom we are forbidden to eat,
Gloria.
From the stars that are but as dew
and the viruses outnumbering the star clusters,
Gloria.
From those waiting at the foot of the helix
for the rope-trick performer to come down,
Gloria.
Because you are not there
When I turn, but are in the turning,
Gloria.
Because it is not I who look
but I who am being looked through,
Gloria.
Because the captive has found the liberty
that eluded him while he was free,
Gloria.
Because from the belief that nothing is nothing
it follows that there must be something,
Gloria.
Because when we count we do not count
the moment between youth and age,
Gloria.
And because, when we are overcome,
we are overcome by nothing,
Gloria.

There was a larger pattern we worked at: they on a big loom, I with a small needle.

Why, then, are my hands red with the blood of so many dead? Is this where I was misled?

I am like a tree, From my top boughs I can see The footprints that led up to me.

I have nowhere to go. The swift satellites show The clock of my whole being is slow.