12. September 2021
Grey waters, vast as an area of prayer / that one enters. Daily over a period of years / I have let my eye rest on them. / Was I waiting for something? Nothing / but that continuous waving that is without meaning / occurred. Ah, but a rare bird is / rare. It is when one is not looking / at times one is not there that it comes. / You must wear your eyes out / as others their knees. I became the hermit / of the rocks, habited with the wind / and the mist. There were days, / so beautiful the emptiness / it might have filled, its absence / was as its presence; not to be told / any more, so single my mind / after its long fast, my watching from praying.
R. S. Thomas, Sea Watching 1975