for R. S. Thomas

Still patches of snow on the high hills
above this frost valley where new lambs
run from watching ewes in air so cold
with chill your breath like glassy mirrors
breaks off in front of you and you walk
through your own reflection—think back
through time to more than forty years ago.

*

The small chapel, built from stone quarried
from the nearby river, has stood for centuries.
The western wall, thick with vine-veined
stone, is a map of the rooted land itself.
In the tiny room at the back of the nave
two small windows—barred since recent
break-ins—hold fifteenth century angels

in pale green and yellow glass. The warden,
from her lambing fields, aproned in mud,
has come to let us in. She watches nonchalantly
as we roam around. There isn’t much to see.
“We sometimes have a dozen for services.&r ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase