R S Thomas (poet)
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rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
R S Thomas (poet)
@rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
610 followers 4 following 740 posts
famous Welsh poet in English language 1913-2000
“…catching this / one truth by surprise / that there is everything to look forward to…”
#RSThomas #poetry #barddoniaeth
📍 yng Nghymru, wrth gwrs
facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/
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rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · Oct 26
Diolch yn fawr iawn i Martin Roberts @ffoto.bsky.social am y llun hyfryd ac y gwên! Many thanks for this photo, especially the smile!
Black and white photo of head of smiling elderly man
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
3 poems by #RSThomas (published in Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)
‘Ivan Karamazov’
‘Now’
‘Somewhere’
youngweather.bsky.social Dustin Ragland @youngweather.bsky.social · 22h
Three poems by RS Thomas for your Wednesday

“Now” is…prescient let’s say

And “Ivan Karamazov” is one of my favorite poems & also of course connected to my favorite book
Ivan Karamazov Yes, I know what he is like : a kind of impossible robot you insert your prayers into like tickets, that after a while are returned to you with the words 'Not granted' written upon them. I repudiate such a god. But if, as you say, he exists, and what I do is an offence to him, let him punish me: I shall not squeal; to be proved right is worth a lifetime's chastisement. And to have God avenging himself is to have the advantage, till the earth opens to receive one into a dark cleft, where, safer than Elijah, one will know him trumpeting in the wind and the fire and the roar of the earthquake, but not in the still, small voice of the worms that deliver one for ever out of the tyranny of his self-love. Now Men, who in their day went down acknowledging defeat, what would they say now, where no superlatives have meaning? What was failure to them, our abandonment of an ideal has turned into high art. Could they with foreknowledge have been happy? Can we, because there are levels not yet descended to, take comfort? Is it sufficient for us that we, like that minority of our fellows in the hurrying centuries, turning aside re-enter the garden? What is the serenity of art worth without the angels at the hot gates, whose sword is time and our uneasy conscience? Somewhere Something to bring back to show you have been there: a lock of God's hair, stolen from him while he was asleep; a photograph of the garden of the spirit. As has been said, the point of travelling is not to arrive, but to return home laden with pollen you shall work up into the honey the mind feeds on. What are our lives but harbours we are continually setting out from, airports at which we touch down and remain in too briefly to recognise what it is they remind us of? And always in one another we seek the proof of experiences it would be worth dying for. Surely there is a shirt of fire this one wore, that is hung up now like some rare fleece in the hall of heroes? Surely these husbands and wives have dipped their marriages in a fast spring? Surely there exists somewhere, as the justification for our looking for it, the one light that can cast such shadows?
November 27, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Forest Dwellers’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Forest Dwellers. Men who have hardly uncurled from their posture in the womb. Naked. Heads bowed, not in prayer, but in contemplation of the earth they came from, that suckled them on the brown milk that builds bone not brain. Who called them forth to walk in the green light, their thoughts on darkness? Their women, who are not Madonnas, have babes at the breast with the wise, time-ridden faces of the Christ child in a painting by a Florentine master. The warriors prepare poison with love's care for the Sebastians of their arrows. They have no God, but follow the contradictions of a ritual that says life must die that life may go on. They wear flowers in their hair.
November 26, 2025 at 8:34 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Forest Dwellers’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Forest Dwellers. Men who have hardly uncurled from their posture in the womb. Naked. Heads bowed, not in prayer, but in contemplation of the earth they came from, that suckled them on the brown milk that builds bone not brain. Who called them forth to walk in the green light, their thoughts on darkness? Their women, who are not Madonnas, have babes at the breast with the wise, time-ridden faces of the Christ child in a painting by a Florentine master. The warriors prepare poison with love's care for the Sebastians of their arrows. They have no God, but follow the contradictions of a ritual that says life must die that life may go on. They wear flowers in their hair.
November 26, 2025 at 8:34 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Evening’ - #RSThomas
(No Truce with the Furies, @BloodaxeBooks)
poemtoday.bsky.social poemtoday.bsky.social @poemtoday.bsky.social · 2d
Evening

The archer with time
as his arrow – has he broken
his strings that the rainbow
is so quiet over our village?

Let us stand, then, in the interval
of our wounding, till the silence
turn golden and love is
a moment eternally overflowing.

R. S. Thomas
November 25, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Kingdom’ - #RSThomas
(H'm, Macmillan)
poetryforsupper.bsky.social E.E. Reed @poetryforsupper.bsky.social · 3d
it's a long way off but inside it
there are quite different things going on:
R.S.Thomas. The Kingdom. It's a long way off but inside it There are quite different things going on: Festivals at which the poor man Is king and the consumptive is Healed; mirrors in which the blind look At themselves and love looks at them Back; and industry is for mending The bent bones and the minds fractured By life. It's a long way off, but to get There takes no time and admission Is free, if you will purge yourself Of desire, and present yourself with Your need only and the simple offering Of your faith, green as a leaf.
November 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Ninetieth Birthday’ - #RSThomas
(Tares, Rupert Hart-Davis)
sylphsea.bsky.social Katy Wimhurst @sylphsea.bsky.social · 3d
‘the lichen
That writes history on the page
Of the grey rock’
RS Thomas #nature #
Green lichen on wooden fence
November 23, 2025 at 10:39 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Kingdom’ - #RSThomas
(H'm, Macmillan)
poetryforsupper.bsky.social E.E. Reed @poetryforsupper.bsky.social · 3d
it's a long way off but inside it
there are quite different things going on:
R.S.Thomas. The Kingdom. It's a long way off but inside it There are quite different things going on: Festivals at which the poor man Is king and the consumptive is Healed; mirrors in which the blind look At themselves and love looks at them Back; and industry is for mending The bent bones and the minds fractured By life. It's a long way off, but to get There takes no time and admission Is free, if you will purge yourself Of desire, and present yourself with Your need only and the simple offering Of your faith, green as a leaf.
November 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Presence’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#YPresenoldeb #ThePresence
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - The Presence. I pray and incur silence. Some take that silence for refusal. I feel the power that, invisible, catches me by the sleeve, nudging towards the long shelf that has the book on it I will take down and read and find the antidote to an ailment. I know its ways with me; how it enters my life, is present rather before I perceive it, sunlight quivering on a bare wall. Is it consciousness trying to get through? Am I under regard? It takes me seconds to focus, by which time it has shifted its gaze, looking a little to one side, as though I were not here. It has the universe to be abroad in. There is nothing I can do but fill myself with my own silence, hoping it will approach like a wild creature to drink there, or perhaps like Narcissus to linger a moment over its transparent face.
November 23, 2025 at 8:31 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Presence’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#YPresenoldeb #ThePresence
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - The Presence. I pray and incur silence. Some take that silence for refusal. I feel the power that, invisible, catches me by the sleeve, nudging towards the long shelf that has the book on it I will take down and read and find the antidote to an ailment. I know its ways with me; how it enters my life, is present rather before I perceive it, sunlight quivering on a bare wall. Is it consciousness trying to get through? Am I under regard? It takes me seconds to focus, by which time it has shifted its gaze, looking a little to one side, as though I were not here. It has the universe to be abroad in. There is nothing I can do but fill myself with my own silence, hoping it will approach like a wild creature to drink there, or perhaps like Narcissus to linger a moment over its transparent face.
November 23, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Moor’ - #RSThomas
(Pietà, Rupert Hart-Davis)
November 18, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Llananno’ - #RSThomas
(Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)
arealmofwonder.bsky.social Cian McCarthy @arealmofwonder.bsky.social · 9d
A poem that offers the most exquisite of moments.

'Llananno'
by R.S. Thomas
November 17, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Bent’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Bent. Heads bowed over the entrails, over the manuscript, the block, over the rows of swedes. Do they never look up? Why should one think that to be on one's knees is to pray? The aim is to walk tall in the sun. Did the weight of the jaw bend their backs, keeping their vision below the horizon? Two million years in straightening them out, and they are still bent over the charts, the instruments, the drawing-board, the mathematical navel that is the wink of God.
November 16, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Flowers’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Blodau #Flowers
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Flowers. But behind the flower is that other flower which is ageless, the idea of the flower, the one we smell when we imagine it, that as often as it is picked blossoms again, that has the perfection of all flowers, the purity without the fragility. Was it a part of the plan for humanity to have flowers about it? They are many and beautiful, with faces that are a reminder of those of our own children, though they come painlessly from the bulb's womb. We trouble them as we go by, so they hang their heads at our unreal progress. If flowers had minds, would they not think they were the colour eternity is, a window that gives on a still view the hurrying people must come to and stare at and pass by?
November 19, 2025 at 8:08 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Flowers’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Blodau #Flowers
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Flowers. But behind the flower is that other flower which is ageless, the idea of the flower, the one we smell when we imagine it, that as often as it is picked blossoms again, that has the perfection of all flowers, the purity without the fragility. Was it a part of the plan for humanity to have flowers about it? They are many and beautiful, with faces that are a reminder of those of our own children, though they come painlessly from the bulb's womb. We trouble them as we go by, so they hang their heads at our unreal progress. If flowers had minds, would they not think they were the colour eternity is, a window that gives on a still view the hurrying people must come to and stare at and pass by?
November 19, 2025 at 8:08 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Moor’ - #RSThomas
(Pietà, Rupert Hart-Davis)
November 18, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
Clods or clouds - part 2
(ref: A Peasant).
As a result of feedback on my post on this topic a few days ago, I asked Prof. Tony Brown (RS Thomas Research Centre, Bangor University) about it. Here’s what came from that…
Text - Clods or clouds - part 2 (ref: A Peasant): As a result of feedback on my post on this topic a few days ago, I asked Prof. Tony Brown (RS Thomas Research Centre, Bangor University) about it. It seems it's a known problem and he said he thinks clouds is a simple oversight/typographical error. Apparently its history is more complicated than I thought, because of the following sequence: - The Stones of the Field- clouds - Song at the Year's Turning - clods - Selected Poems 1946-68 - clods - Poems of R. S. Thomas (1985) University of Arkansas Press - clods - Collected Poems 1945-1990 - clouds - Selected Poems (Penguin) - clouds. Tony suggests that the inconsistency arises according to which source the compiler uses, so those who (understandably) use its first publication (The Stones of the Field) are unwittingly repeating the mistake!
November 17, 2025 at 2:37 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Llananno’ - #RSThomas
(Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)
arealmofwonder.bsky.social Cian McCarthy @arealmofwonder.bsky.social · 9d
A poem that offers the most exquisite of moments.

'Llananno'
by R.S. Thomas
November 17, 2025 at 10:32 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
Clods or clouds - part 2
(ref: A Peasant).
As a result of feedback on my post on this topic a few days ago, I asked Prof. Tony Brown (RS Thomas Research Centre, Bangor University) about it. Here’s what came from that…
Text - Clods or clouds - part 2 (ref: A Peasant): As a result of feedback on my post on this topic a few days ago, I asked Prof. Tony Brown (RS Thomas Research Centre, Bangor University) about it. It seems it's a known problem and he said he thinks clouds is a simple oversight/typographical error. Apparently its history is more complicated than I thought, because of the following sequence: - The Stones of the Field- clouds - Song at the Year's Turning - clods - Selected Poems 1946-68 - clods - Poems of R. S. Thomas (1985) University of Arkansas Press - clods - Collected Poems 1945-1990 - clouds - Selected Poems (Penguin) - clouds. Tony suggests that the inconsistency arises according to which source the compiler uses, so those who (understandably) use its first publication (The Stones of the Field) are unwittingly repeating the mistake!
November 17, 2025 at 2:37 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘A Welshman to any Tourist’ - #RSThomas
(Song at the Year's Turning, Rupert Hart-Davis)
cduigan.bsky.social Catherine Duigan @cduigan.bsky.social · 10d
"The hills are fine, of course,
Bearded with water to suggest age..."
#RSThomas @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social

#Wales - blessed by an abundance of rain and some superb #waterfalls #AberFalls #Eryri #walking #wellbeing #nature #poetry
River emerging from rocky base of sinuous waterfall producing spray; autumnal colours surrounding.
November 16, 2025 at 5:16 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘The Flower’ - #RSThomas
(Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)
jonmsweeney.bsky.social Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 11d
I asked for riches. / You gave me the earth, the sea... (R. S. Thomas)
November 16, 2025 at 8:17 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘Bent’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem
Text of poem - Bent. Heads bowed over the entrails, over the manuscript, the block, over the rows of swedes. Do they never look up? Why should one think that to be on one's knees is to pray? The aim is to walk tall in the sun. Did the weight of the jaw bend their backs, keeping their vision below the horizon? Two million years in straightening them out, and they are still bent over the charts, the instruments, the drawing-board, the mathematical navel that is the wink of God.
November 16, 2025 at 8:12 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘And beyond…’ - #RSThomas
(The Echoes Return Slow, Macmillan)
November 14, 2025 at 1:31 PM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
Clods or clouds?!
A mistake in a published poem of #RSThomas ! You might want to amend your copy. Explanation and correct version attached…
(thanks to Lee @seventyninelee.bsky.social for spotting this)
Text - Clods or clouds?! On Remembrance Sunday I posted the poem 'A Peasant' on Bluesky and on Facebook, and someone queried whether 'clouds' should actually be 'clods' in line 7. And they are right! It's 'clods' in 'The Stones of the Field' and in 'Song at the Year's Turning' but then it's wrongly 'clouds' in 'Collected Poems 1945-1990', both the printed and ebook versions. And of course clods makes more sense than clouds in context. So you might want to amend your copy. Here's the correct version... Text of poem - A Peasant. lago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed, Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills, Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud. Docking mangels, chipping the green skin From the yellow bones with a half-witted grin Of satisfaction, or churning the crude earth To a stiff sea of clods that glint in the wind-So are his days spent, his spittled mirth Rarer than the sun that cracks the cheeks Of the gaunt sky perhaps once in a week. And then at night see him fixed in his chair Motionless, except when he leans to gob in the fire. There is something frightening in the vacancy of his mind. His clothes, sour with years of sweat And animal contact, shock the refined, But affected, sense with their stark naturalness. Yet this is your prototype, who, season by season Against siege of rain and the wind's attrition, Preserves his stock, an impregnable fortress Not to be stormed even in death's confusion. Remember him, then, for he, too, is a winner of wars, Enduring like a tree under the curious stars. - RS Thomas
November 14, 2025 at 8:46 AM
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
‘A Day in Autumn’ - #RSThomas
(Poetry for Supper, Rupert Hart-Davis)
profdavidmorley.bsky.social David Morley @profdavidmorley.bsky.social · 15d
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.

from 'A Day in Autumn' by R.S. Thomas
November 11, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)
rsthomaspoet.bsky.social
Remembrance:
‘Pact’ - #RSThomas
(Uncollected Poems, @BloodaxeBooks)
Text of poem - Pact. This is my child; that is yours. Let peace be between them when they grow up. They are far off now; let it not be through war they are brought near. Their languages are different. Let them both learn it is peace in the hand is the translation of peace in the mind. RS Thomas A field of red and white poppies in bloom.
November 11, 2025 at 7:53 AM