by R.S. Thomas
With her fingers she turns paint
into flowers, with her body
flowers into a remembrance
of herself. She is at work
always, mending the garment
of our marriage, foraging
like a bird for something
for us to eat. If there are thorns
in my life, it is she who
will press her breast to them and sing.
Her words, when she would scold,
are too sharp. She is busy
after for hours rubbing smiles
into the wounds. I saw her,
when young, and spread the panoply
of my feathers instinctively
to engage her. She was not deceived,
but accepted me as a girl
will under a thin moon
in love’s absence as someone
she could build a home with
for her imagined child.
I’m not a big fan of Thomas, but it is interesting to read his poetry after seeing another perspective put forth in his biography:
The brilliant artist that RS Thomas married virtually sank into obscurity in his shadow.
Mildred Elsie Eldridge became plain Elsi and a forgotten artist after she married Thomas exactly 66 years ago on July 5, 1940.
But just three years earlier, when she first met her husband-to-be, she was driving an open-top Bentley and he was an unpublished poet on a bike.
The Bentley reference falls flat, mostly because the pair subsequently lived a pauper’s life apparently at the insistence of Thomas who turned to religion and nationalism, and feared technology. Or was that the point of the reference? It’s so unclear, it seems like an awkward detail. Could the bicycle have been in fact a richer experience than the Bentley?
Anyway, the part of the story about the biography that really caught my eye was this revelation:
Rogers believes Elsi was the source of much of the muse that moved in Thomas, but the poet only ever mentioned his wife’s work in a single poem.
Rogers said, “I try to show the effect Elsi had on Ron. About 1940 he is writing gushy things about fairy lands and a few years later he is writing about grim Welsh peasants.
“Something made him grow up, and it’s something to do with Elsi.”
Is “The Way of It” that single poem that Rogers wants us to recognize? Thomas certainly seems very fond of his wife, and seems to put her in contrast to his own pained perspectives on life. Does growing up mean giving up? I wonder if there might be more pronounced references to Elsi lurking in his collection? Additional references could dispel Rogers’ argument regarding acknowledgment by the poet, yet prove a theory of connectedness at the same time.
