In darkness the poet needs a window
‘You speak as though
No sunlight ever surprised the mind
Groping on its cloudy path.’
‘Sunlight’s a thing that needs a window
Before it enters a dark room.
Windows don’t happen.’
So two old poets,
Hunched at their beer in the low haze
Of an inn parlour, while the talk ran
Noisily by them, glib with prose.
R.S. Thomas (1913-2000).
Charles Taylor says that his latest book ‘is about (what I see as) the human need for cosmic connection . . . one shot through with joy, significance, inspiration’. And his hypothesis is that ‘the desire for this connection is a human constant, felt by (at least some) people in all ages and phases of human history.’ ('Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment', The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press, 2024).
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