Poem for Good Friday

In A Country Church

To one kneeling down no word came,
only the wind’s song, saddening the lips
of the grave saints, rigid in glass;
Or the dry whisper of unseen wings,
bats not angels, in the high roof.
Was he balked by silence? He kneeled long,
and saw love in a dark crown
of thorns blazing and a winter tree
golden with fruit of a man’s body.

R.S. Thomas.