The Village

Portrait of R.S. Thomas
R.S. Thomas 1913–2000

Scarcely a street, too few houses To merit the title; just a way between The one tavern and the one shop That leads nowhere and fails at the top Of the short hill, eaten away By long erosion of the green tide Of grass creeping perpetually nearer This last outpost of time past.

So little happens; the black dog Cracking his fleas in the hot sun Is history. Yet the girl who crosses From door to door moves to a scale Beyond the bland day's two dimensions.

Stay, then, village, for round you spins On a slow axis a world as vast And meaningful as any posed By great Plato's solitary mind.

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