Sunday Sabbath Poetry: R. S. Thomas (II)

Requisite heading as always: "no introduction needed from me." (Seriously: Search some variant of that phrase in my blog, and you'll find a dozen instances of my parroting that phrase, followed by an introduction in disguise.) So instead of enacting the unnecessary -- given that I've done so with him before -- here, without context or qualification, is a poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas.



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Kneeling



By R. S. Thomas

Moments of great calm,

Kneeling before an altar

Of wood in a stone church

In summer, waiting for the God

To speak; the air a staircase

For silence; the sun's light

Ringing me, as though I acted

A great rôle. And the audiences

Still; all that close throng

Of spirits waiting, as I,

For the message.

                               Prompt me, God;

But not yet. When I speak,

Though it be you who speak

Through me, something is lost.

The meaning is in the waiting.