Ronald Stuart Thomas Poems

You go up the long track
That will take a car, but is best walked
On slow foot, noting the lichen
That writes history on the page
...

Evans? Yes, many a time
I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang
...

It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
...

It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
...

All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
...

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
...

Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed,
Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills,
Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud.
Docking mangels, chipping the green skin
...

Laid now on his smooth bed
For the last time, watching dully
Through heavy eyelids the day's colour
Widow the sky, what can he say
...

Who said to the trout,
You shall die on Good Friday
To be food for a man
And his pretty lady?
...

I praise you because
you are artist and scientist
in one. When I am somewhat
fearful of your power,
...