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Truce with the Furies
on the death of R S Thomas
Only
time
and our inherited frailty
ended the fight. You were
relentless in pursuit of them, gave
quarter neither to them nor
to the God by whose instruction
or permission they provoked
your Muse to her defiance. They were
your Comforters throughout
that bleak half-century in which you
camped in the machine’s detritus,
knowing too well religion’s pull
and weakness, kneeling without sentiment upon
the cold flags of your calling to those
whose lives turned on the slow certainties
of harsh work and sly pleasure.
Have
you now
received your answer, who for all
your pleas and goadings heard
no voice speak its rebuttal from
the whirlwind of your faith’s fierce abstention?
© Godfrey Rust 2000, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. See here
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