R. S. Thomas - Hand Quotes

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We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.

R. S. Thomas
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
Of cloud for at least half the year.
My word for heaven was not yours.
The word for hell had a sharp edge
Put on it by the hand of the wind
Honing, honing with a shrill sound
Day and night. Nothing that Glyn Dwr
Knew was armour against the rain's
Missiles. What was descent from him?

R. S. Thomas
A power guided my hand. If an invisible company
waited to see what I would do,
I in my own way asked for
direction, so we should journey together
a little nearer the accomplishment
of the design.

R. S. Thomas
Why are my hands this way
That they will not do as i say?
Does no God hear when I pray?

R. S. Thomas
I am a man now.
Pass your hand over my brow.
You can feel the place where the brains grow.

R. S. Thomas
Why, then, are my hands red
with the blood of so many dead?
Is this where I was mislead?

R. S. Thomas
Art is recuperation
from time. I lie back
convalescing upon the prospect
of a harvest already at hand.

R. S. Thomas
The silence holds with its gloved hand the wild hawk of the mind.

R. S. Thomas
Ah, what balance is needed at
the edges of such an abyss.
I am left alone on the surface
of a turning planet. What to do but, like Michelangelo's
Adam, put my hand
out into unknown space,
hoping for the reciprocating touch?

R. S. Thomas