R S Thomas (1913-2000) is a favourite poet of mine.  An Anglican priest, he is thought by some to be the great religious poet of the 20^th century writing in English. I’m not religious, but I connect easily with the spirituality in his poems. He is that classic figure, the tortured priest hovering on the edge of unbelief. An ardent Welsh nationalist, he served a rural parish in the West of Wales and writes about the hard lives of the people there. “The Other” is the first poem of his that I read when it was recommended to me by another Anglican priest. There began a journey into many fine, direct, and clear but profound poems. I read through a book of his poems as I walked the Owen Glendower Way through Mid-Wales.

There are nights that are so still

that I can hear the small owl

calling

far off and a fox barking

miles away. It is then that I lie

in the lean hours awake listening

to the swell born somewhere in

the Atlantic

rising and falling, rising and

falling

wave on wave on the long shore

by the village that is without

light

and companionless. And the

thought comes

of that other being who is

awake, too,

letting our prayers break on him,

not like this for a few hours,

but for days, years, for eternity.