I’m just coming to the poems of R.S. Thomas, a Welsh clergyman.
He had the reputation as a Welsh nationalist and as a hater of technology. We’re not talking about cellphones. He tried a vacuum cleaner but decided the noise outweighed the convenience.
Thomas also had a reputation of being stony and austere, a brooder, not much of a people person.
I wonder if that’s a bad rap. Thomas was one of those people who look at the forces that shaped them. I know something about that pastime, and sometimes people who think about how they were shaped seem sick in a way, as if anything less than a relentlessly upbeat mood were a serious of illness requiring therapy.
Here are the opening two stanzas of “Here”:
I am a man now.
Pass your hand over my brow.
You can feel the place where the brains grow.
I am like a tree,
From my top boughs I can see
The footprints that led up to me.
Looking at the footprints that lead to yourself is not always a cheery business. I’d say those lines suggest introspection, not brooding.
• Source: All Poetry has the complete poem here:
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