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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Tim Cunningham

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Asking David

(R. S. Thomas reading)

Turning the pages,
His fingers trembled
Like trees in a Welsh
Wind.  But when he read,
Seats assumed
The grain of chapel
Pews, the rostrum
Was his pulpit,
His Perrier water
Sparkled like the grail,
And words fell
Solid as if hewn
On tablets of stone.

Sharing his secrets,
He named the Artist
Who colours eternal
Skies; revealed
A score to resurrect
The carcasses of song;
Etched luminous
Lines for nights
When our pits implode
And souls crawl,
Lampless, antennae
Frantic for light
And air seeping
From the hillside’s wound.

After amens of applause,
Proffering my book,
His words,
Was asking David
To sign his psalms.

Then exits opened
Like breaks in cloud.
We followed
The moonlit river,
Less silted now,
To rooms less stranded,
To beds less bleak;
And wondered how
He crushed that nail,
The colour of ink                                                
The colour of pain.                                             

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