R.S. Thomas' "Welsh Landscape"

Today's poem is R.S. Thomas' "Welsh Landscape". Remember: rate, review, subscribe. To live in Wales is to be consciousAt dusk of the spilled bloodThat went into the making of the wild sky,Dyeing the immaculate riversIn all their courses.It is to be aware,Above the noisy tractorAnd hum of the machineOf strife in the strung woods,Vibrant with sped arrows.You cannot live in the present,At least not in Wales.There is the language for instance,The soft consonantsStrange to the ear.There are cries in the dark at nightAs owls answer the moon,And thick ambush of shadows,Hushed at the fields’ corners.There is no present in Wales,And no future;There is only the past,Brittle with relics,Wind-bitten towers and castlesWith sham ghosts;Mouldering quarries and mines;And an impotent people,Sick with inbreeding,Worrying the carcase of an old song. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe