R. S. Thomas

Nocturne by Ben Shahn
 
'Why look at me like that?'
 
'Well — it's your hand on the guitar.'
 
'Don't touch it; there is fire in it.'
 
'But why doesn't it burn you?'
 
'It does, it does; but inside me.'
 
'I see no smoke at your nostrils.'
 
'But I see green leaves at your lips.'
 
'They are the thoughts I would conceal.'
 
'You are the music that I compose.'
 
'Play me, then, back to myself.'
 
'It is too late; your face forbids it.'
 
'The arteries of the tall trees —'
 
'Are electric, charged with your blood.'
 
'But my hand now sleeps in my lap.'
 
'Let it remain so, clawed like my own.'

 

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