the meaning

With poetry, one is never enough, is it?  A poem leads to another poem, another poet.  Words, phrases, images lodge in your head.

 

I found this poem earlier, and I love it.  I have an atheistic reading of it (what you call God, I call nature; what you call prayer, I call meditation) but it doesn’t seem to matter. I love that pause, that space… that waiting.

 

Kneeling  By R. S. Thomas

 

Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

 

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