The Church [a free working of R. S. Thomas’s ‘The Moor’]

R.S. Thomas

It was like a moor to me.

I entered with soft steps.

My thoughts held like last breaths.

All was still –

The stillness of eight hundred years.

What was left of the moor

- Seen (in that constructed place)

By the eye of the imagination -

Was still clear.

Still equal to the modest splendour

And curved symmetry

Of the vaulted sky within.

I said no meek prayer.

The resurrection of dying questions –

That was prayer enough.

I sat down.

And all along with the heart’s surrender

Of its temporary domain.

As easy as moor mist

Around a lone self,

The church's damp closed in -

Bringing the moor back.

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The Moor, by R.S. Thomas

It was like a church to me.

I entered it on soft foot,

Breath held like a cap in the hand.

It was quiet.

What God was there made himself felt,

Not listened to, in clean colours

That brought a moistening of the eye,

In movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness

Of the heart’s passions – that was praise

Enough; and the mind’s cession

Of its kingdom. I walked on,

Simple and poor, while the air crumbled

And broke on me generously as bread.