The Other

There are nights that are so still

that I can hear the small owl calling

far off and a fox barking

miles away. It is then that I lie

in the lean hours awake listening

to the swell born somewhere in

the Atlantic

rising and falling, rising and falling

wave on wave on the long shore

by the village that is without light

and companionless. And the

thought comes

of that other being who is

awake, too,

letting our prayers break on him,

not like this for a few hours,

but for days, years, for eternity.

~R. S. Thomas