'Mystery's toys'

 It's Epiphany Sunday today. Here is something typically chastening from our best religious poet of recent times, R.S. Thomas – 

Epiphany

Three kings? Not even one
any more. Royalty
has gone to ground, its journeyings
over. Who now will bring

gifts and to what place? In
the manger there are only the toys
and the tinsel. The child
has become a man. Far

off from his cross in the wrong
season he sits at table
with us, with on his head
the fool’s cap of our paper money.


And here is an Epiphany poem by Geoffrey Hill (the setting of which is the grand parish church of Kidderminster, the largest in Worcestershire) – 

Epiphany at Saint Mary and All Saints

The wise men, vulnerable in ageing plaster,
are borne as gifts
to be set down among the other treasures
in their familial strangeness, mystery's toys.

Below the church the Stour slovens
through its narrow cut.
On service roads the lights cast amber salt
slatted with a thin rain doubling as snow.

Showings are not unknown: a six-winged seraph
somewhere impends – it is the geste of invention,
not the creative but the creator spirit.
The night air sings a colder spell to come.

This evening, having been obliged to miss all Christmas services, I shall be making my way to the cathedral for the Epiphany carol service. I look forward to being duly asperged...