The Place
by R S Thomas Summer is here. Once more the house has its Spray of martins, Prousts fountain Of small birds, whose light shadows Come and go in the sunshine Of the lawn as thoughts do In the mind. Watching them fly Is my business, not as a man vowed To science, who counts their returns To the rafters, or sifts their droppings For facts, recording the wave-length Of their screaming; my method is so To have them about myself Through the hours of this brief Season and to fill with their Movement, that it is I that they build In and bring up their young To return to after the bitter Migrations, knowing the site Inviolate through its outward changes.