“The Absence” by R. S. Thomas
It is this great absence
that is like a presence,
that compels
me to address it
without hope
of a reply.
It is a room I enter
from which someone has just
gone,
the vestibule for the arrival
of one who has not yet come.
I modernise the anachronism
of my language,
but he is no more here
than before.
Genes and moleculeshave no more power to call
him up than the incense of the Hebrews
at their altars.
My equations fail
as my words do.
What resources have I
other than the emptiness without him of my wholebeing,
a vacuum he may not abhor?
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