Nathan E. Lewis

The finest poem I have enjoyed this Passion week is “The Coming,” by R.S. Thomas. One of my fathers in the faith told me of it as he found it in “Divine Inspirations: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry,”. I have been holding out my thin arms but tomorrow morning strengthened by the surety of the resurrection I will raise them a bit higher and longer in praise of the One who said, “Let me go there.”

THE COMING

And God held in his hand
a small globe.  Look, he said,
the son looked.  Far off,
as through water, he saw
a scorched land of fierce
color.  The light burned
there: crusted buildings
cast their shadows; a bright
serpent, a river
uncoiled itself, radiant
with slime.

On a bare
hill a bare tree saddened
the sky.  Many people
held out their thin arms
to it, as though waiting
for a vanished April
to return to its crossed
boughs.  The son watched
them.  Let me go there, he said.

For more on R.S. Thomas and his writing, go to his site.