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Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)

R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

‘Retirement’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Ymddeoliad #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

Retirement.
I have crawled out at last far as I dare on to a bough of country that is suspended between sky and sea.
From what was I escaping There is a rare peace here, though the aeroplanes buzz me, reminders of that abyss,
deeper than sea or sky, civilisation could fall into. Strangers advance, inching their way out, so that the branch bends
further away from the scent of the cloud blossom. Must I console myself with reflections? There are
times even the mirror
is misted as by one breathing over my shoulder. Clinging to my position, witnessing
the seasonal migrations, I must try to content myself with the perception that love and truth have
no wings, but are resident like me here, practising
their sub-song quietly in the face of the bitterest of winters.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

@j-lbrbsblogs.bsky.social Diolch, thank you for reposting. If you like #RSThomas then you might be interested in following this Bluesky account @RSThomaspoet.bsky.social also facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/ - and there’s a Society you can join… rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

‘Kneeling’ - #RSThomas (Not That He Brought Flowers - Rupert Hart-Davis 1968)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

‘Kneeling’ - #RSThomas (Not That He Brought Flowers - Rupert Hart-Davis 1968)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

‘Borders’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Gororau #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

Borders
Somewhere beyond time's curve civilisation lifted its glass rim. There was a pretence of light
for nations to walk by through the dark wood, where history wintered. Following I came to the foretold frontier
where with a machine's instinct the guns' nostrils flared at the blooms held out to them by the flower people.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

‘The Prayer’ - #RSThomas (Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan 1975)

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Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)

snowded.bsky.social @snowded.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

A preliminary announcement of the Cynefin Field Guide, five years in the making and available this month - register via the link. thecynefin.co/five-years-i...

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Five years in the field - The Cynefin Co

To live in the wilderness is the beginning of creation R. S. Thomas, in the spirit of his desert theology The Cynefin Field Guide has been in the making

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

‘The Prayer’ - #RSThomas (Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan 1975)

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Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru @gwasgprifcymru.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Mae'n Ddiwrnod Cenedlaethol Barddoniaeth! Dysgwch am un o feirdd mwyaf Cymru gyda'r gyfrol 'R. S. Thomas, Desperado: Cultural Warrior of Wales' gan M. Wynn Thomas a gyhoeddwyd gennym fis diwethaf. 📚️ www.gwasgprifysgolcymru.org/book/r-s-tho...

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

‘Genealogy’ - #RSThomas (Tares, Rupert Hart-Davis 1961)

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University of Wales Press @uniwalespress.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Happy National #Poetry Day! Learn more about one of Wales's most revered poets in 'R. S. Thomas, Desperado: Cultural Warrior of Wales' by M. Wynn Thomas. 📚️ www.uwp.co.uk/book/r-s-tho... #NationalPoetryDay

‘M. Wynn Thomas, with his usual
wry wit and poetic perception, walks
the path around the distant and
rugged terrain of R. S. Thomas. This
book is like light through a prism,
the whole spectrum of the poet’s
hints, ambiguities and shards on full
view, and admired with such a
passionate and joyful questioning.
No one reads between R.S.’s lines
with such clarity, and to read this
book is a teasing delight to both the
parched soul and roving mind.’

The Very Revd Mark Oakley,
Dean of Southwark

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

‘Genealogy’ - #RSThomas (Tares, Rupert Hart-Davis 1961)

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Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)

Arie Sonneveld @ariesonneveld.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Een herfstdag, nieuwe vertaling van A Day In Autumn van de Welshe dichter R.S. Thomas. thehiddenlaw.com/2026/09/30/e...

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Een herfstdag – R.S. Thomas

Een herfstdag, nieuwe vertaling van A Day In Autumn van de Welshe dichter R.S. Thomas.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Michaelmas Day 29th September. ‘A Day in Autumn’ - #RSThomas (Poetry for Supper, Rupert Hart-Davis 1958)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Michaelmas Day 29th September. ‘A Day in Autumn’ - #RSThomas (Poetry for Supper, Rupert Hart-Davis 1958)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

‘Sea-Watching’ - #RSThomas (Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan 1975)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

‘The Window’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #yFfenestr #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

The Window.
Say he is any man anywhere set before the shop window of life, full of comestibles and jewels; to put out his hand is to come up against glass; to break it is to injure himself.
Shall he turn
poet and acquire them in the imagination, gospeller and extol himself for his abstention from them?
What if he is not called? I would put the manufacturers there. Let them see the eyes staring in, be splashed with the blood of the shop-breakers; let them live on the poet's diet, on the pocket-money of the priest.
I see the blinds
going down in Europe, over the whole world: the rich with everything to sell, the poor with nothing to buy it with.

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John ‘the importance of ideas & information’ 🦋 @wjpme.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

@imcmillan.bsky.social We are at the RS Thomas festival in Eglwysfach, Machynlleth & yesterday went on a lovely walk - one of RS’s - overlooking the beautiful Dyfi estuary. Owen Sheers then gave a wonderful talk on ‘beirdd gwlad’ [folk poets]. One for the Verb maybe? cynefinmusic.wales/en/home-page

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Home Page - Cynefin

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Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)

R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Welsh poet RS Thomas died #OnThisDay in 2000. Here's a tribute by Rowan Williams (patron of the RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Society)…

Text of poem -

Deathship.
(In memory of R. S. Thomas)
The last years, words from a window smoothing the sea, the iron back and forth to probe the fugitive wrinkles carving a path down to the lost gate.
What hid in the pale clefts till now feels for the light, a soft uncertain lingering as if through stone, through furrows of flint.
The tides pressed neat as for an evening out: time to drag down a black boat from the shed, off through the gate, to balance on the slow sea at dark, ready to sail.
The smoke will rise, the cloudy pillar wavering across the sky's long page At dawn, somewhere westward, the boat flares in a blaze of crying birds.
- Rowan Williams

A black-and-white close-up portrait of an elderly RS Thomas with tousled white hair and a deeply lined face, wearing a dark coat. He is looking slightly off-camera with a happy expression.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Bu farw'r bardd Cymreig #RSThomas #ArYDyddHwn 2000. Dyma deyrnged gan Rowan Williams (noddwr Cymdeithas RS Thomas & ME Eldridge)…

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

‘Kneeling’ - #RSThomas (Not That He Brought Flowers - Rupert Hart-Davis 1968)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@yrieithydd.bsky.social Diolch, thank you for reposting. If you like #RSThomas then you might be interested in following this Bluesky account @RSThomaspoet.bsky.social also facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/ - and there’s a Society you can join… rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@farsouthproject.bsky.social Diolch, thank you for reposting. If you like #RSThomas then you might be interested in following this Bluesky account @RSThomaspoet.bsky.social also facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/ - and there’s a Society you can join… rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@winidavies.bsky.social Diolch am ail-bostio. Os dych chi'n hoffi #RSThomas falle y bydd gyda chi ddiddordeb mewn dilyn y cyfrif Bluesky hwn @RSThomaspoet.bsky.social hefyd facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/ - ac mae Cymdeithas y gallwch chi ymuno â hi… rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Welsh poet RS Thomas died #OnThisDay in 2000. Here's a tribute by Rowan Williams (patron of the RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Society)…

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Bu farw'r bardd Cymreig #RSThomas #ArYDyddHwn 2000. Dyma deyrnged gan Rowan Williams (noddwr Cymdeithas RS Thomas & ME Eldridge)…

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Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)

R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

‘April Song’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

April Song.
Withdrawing from the present, wandering a past that is alive in books only. In love with women, outlasted
by their smiles; the richness of their apparel puts the poor in perspective.
The brush dipped in blood
and the knife in art
have preserved their value.
Smouldering times: sacked cities, incinerable hearts,
and the fledgling God tipped out of his high nest into the virgin's lap by the incorrigible cuckoo.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

‘In a Country Church’ - #RSThomas (Song at the Year's Turning, Rupert Hart-Davis 1955)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

‘Countering’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

Countering.
Then there is the clock's commentary, the continuing prose that is the under-current of all poetry. We listen to it as, on a desert island, men do to the subdued
music of their blood in a shell.
Then take my hand that is of the bone the island is made of, and looking at me say what time it is on love's face, for we have no business here other than to disprove certainties the clock knows.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

‘The Porch’ - #RSThomas (Frequencies, Macmillan 1978)

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Reposted by R S Thomas (poet)

R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

‘Strands’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

Strands.
It was never easy.
There was a part of us, trailing uterine
memories, would have lapsed back into Eden, the mindless place. There was a part, masochistic, terrifying itself with a possibility - infinite freedom in confrontation with infinite love; the idea
of a balance, where we should come to be weighed, lifting horrified eyes to a face that was more than human. And a part amenable to the alternatives: nature, mechanism, evolution, bearers of a torch kindled to illuminate primaeval
caves that has become electric, the probing searchlight piercing beyond the galaxies, shocking the manipulator of it with its ability to discover nothing, the ultimate hole the intrepid reason has dug for itself.
Must we
draw back? Is there a far side to an abyss, and can our wings take us there? Or is man's meaning in the keeping of himself afloat over seventy thousand fathoms, tacking against winds coming from no direction, going in no direction?

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Diwrnod Owain Glyndŵr Owain Glyndŵr Day ‘The Rising of Glyndwr’ - #RSThomas (The Stones of the Field, Druid Press 1946)

Text of poem -

The Rising of Glyndwr.
Thunder-browed and shaggy-throated
All the men were there, And the women with the hair
That is the raven's and the rook's despair.
Winds awoke, and vixen-footed Firelight prowled the glade;
The stars were hooded and the moon afraid To vex the darkness with her yellow braid.
Then he spoke, and anger kindled In each brooding eye;
Swords and spears accused the sky, The woods resounded with a bitter cry.
Beasts gave tongue and barn-owls hooted,
Every branch grew loud
With the menace of that crowd.
That thronged the dark, huge as a thundercloud.

Colour photo of the flag of Glyndŵr flying against a partly clouded blue sky.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Diwrnod Owain Glyndŵr Owain Glyndŵr Day ‘The Rising of Glyndwr’ - #RSThomas (The Stones of the Field, Druid Press 1946)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

‘Calling’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

Calling.
The telephone is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We may call everyone up on it but God.
To do that is to declare that he is far off. Dialling zero is nothing other
than the negation of his presence.
So many times I have raised the receiver, listening to
that smooth sound that is technology's purring; and the temptation
has come to experiment with the code which would put me through to the divine
snarl at the perimeter of such tameness.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

‘Ritual’ - #RSThomas (Experimenting with an Amen, Macmillan 1986) #Defod #Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd #Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem -

Ritual.
Not international renown, but international vocabulary, the macaronics of time: poipa, desiderium, brad, la vida
breve, despair - I am the bone on which all have beaten out their message to the mind that would soar. Faithful
in translation, its ploy was to evade my resources. It saw me dance through the Middle Ages, and wrote its poetry with quilled pen. What so rich as the language to which the priests buried me? They have exchanged their vestments for white coats, working away in their bookless laboratories, ministrants in that ritual beyond words
which is the Last Sacrament of the species.

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

‘A Blackbird Singing’ - #RSThomas (Poetry for Supper, Rupert Hart-Davis 1958)

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Invitation to a launch event for a collection of poetry by Aled Jones Williams, who will be in conversation with Rowan Williams. Aled was vicar to RS Thomas in his final years, presiding at RS’s funeral. Aled is also going to be a speaker at the RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Festival, June 2027, Aberdaron

GWAHODDIAD/ INVITATION
ALED JONES WILLIAMS
The H'mm Foundation
invites you to the launch of
Y Dychryn Angenrheidiol
The Necessary Terror

Aled Jones Williams
In conversation with Rowan Williams

LLEOLIAD:
Oriel Afallon
13 Whitchurch Road
Carditt CF14 3JN

DYDDIAD: 23/09/2026
AMSER: 6:00 pm

RSVP by 20/09/2026 inquiries@chehmmfoundation.co.uk

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

This looks really very good …

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

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R S Thomas (poet) @rsthomaspoet.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

@gwasgprifcymru.bsky.social Shwmae, os dych chi'n mwynhau #RSThomas, falle bydd diddordeb gyda chi yn dilyn @RSThomaspoet ar Bluesky, ac yn facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/ - rhannu pethau gan RS Thomas, neu am RS Thomas. Hefyd mae ‘na gymdeithas: rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/

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