Directions by R.S. Thomas

In this desert of language

we find ourselves in,

with the sign-post with the word ‘God’

worn away

and the distance… ?


Pity the simpleton

with his mouth open crying:

How far is it to God?


And the wiseacre says: Where you were,


You know the smile


as the machine that thinks it has outpaced


I am one of those

who sees from the arms opened

to embrace the future

the shadow of the Cross fall

on the smoothest of surfaces

causing me to stumble.


by R. S. Thomas

from Between Here and Now (1981)