'Let me go there'

St Nicholas' Day already... Time for an Advent poem.
Here is one by R.S. Thomas – 'The Coming'. There's a flavour of George Herbert here, but with an overlay of bleakness that is all Thomas's own.

And God held in his hand

A small globe. Look, he said.

The son looked. Far off,

As through water, he saw

A scorched land of fierce

Colour. The light burned

There; crusted buildings

Cast their shadows: a bright

Serpent, a river

Uncoiled itself, radiant

With slime.

                        On a bare

Hill a bare tree saddened

The sky. Many People

Held out their thin arms

To it, as though waiting

For a vanished April

To return to its crossed

Boughs. The son watched

Them. Let me go there, he said.