The Meeting

He was looking at a flower,
Not with love, but looking at it;
His plough was stopped in the top corner
Of a field he had just roofed.

There was nothing to say that the wind,
Repeating in a tree the unrecorded
Facts of history, had reached further
Than the cold porches of his ear.

He was looking at a flower,
As an animal looks, wondering nothing
About the mystery of its growth.
And why should he? He had grown, too.

With less beauty? Who is to say?
There was a likeness in his eyes,
In both their tenancies of the air’s
Quietness. You could have passed

On the hill road, unsuspecting
That blank encounter in space-time
Of two creatures, each with its load
Of meaning not to be set down.

~R. S. Thomas