april 8 {the poem project}

8.

Tenancies
This is pain’s landscape.
A savage agriculture is practised
Here; every farm has its
Grandfather or grandmother, gnarled hands
On the cheque-book, a long, slow
Pull on the placenta about the neck.
Old lips monopolise the talk
When a friend calls. The children listen
From the kitchen; the children march
With angry patience against the dawn.
They are waiting for someone to die
Whose name is as bitter as the soil
They handle. In clear pools
In the furrows they watch themselves grown old
To the terrible accompaniment of the song
Of the blackbird, that promises them love.
R. S. Thomas

I developed a real fondness for R.S. Thomas in (where else?) Wales. Much of his poetry, especially about Wales, is extremely bitter and full of accusation. Nevertheless, much of it rings true somehow. He was accomplished at all forms of poetry, prolific, and capable of turns of phrase both astonishingly stark (like the first line) and also clairvoyant, beautiful.