Talking of Godfathers of Gloom (see 'RIP', below), I was reading R.S. Thomas last night. The Bard of Bleakness certainly deserves his craggy and forbidding reputation - nobody has written better of life's fierce rigours and God's stubborn absence. However, when, on occasion, a shaft of light penetrates the Cambrian gloom, it shines all the brighter for its rarity. As here -
Arrival
Not conscious
that you have been seeking
suddenly
you come upon it
the village in the Welsh hills
dust free
with no road out
but the one you came in by.
A bird chimes
from a green tree
the hour that is no hour
you know. The river dawdles
to hold a mirror for you
where you may see yourself
as you are, a traveller
with the moon's halo
above him, who has arrived
after long journeying where he
began, catching this
one truth by surprise
that there is everything to look forward to.
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