THE VILLAGE

Scarcely a street, too few houses
To merit the title; just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the short hill, eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer
This last outpost of time past.

So little happens; the black dog
Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history. Yet the girl who crosses
From door to door moves to a scale
Beyond the bland day's two dimensions.

Stay, then, village, for round you spins
On slow axis a world as vast
And meaningful as any poised
By great Plato's solitary mind.

Manafon was in a hollow. There was no village there,
only a church, a school, a shop and a public house, and
the surrounding hills rose to somewhere over a thousand feet.
(R.S.Thomas, "Former Paths", Autobiographies, p.11)

"The Villaget,"
from Song at the Year's Turning
You can also find this in
COLLECTED POEMS 1945-1990(J.M.Dent, 1993).

Background image: Manafon
This photo was taken in 2004 from the Welsh hill by Yoshifum! Nagata