Degas & Thomas

DEGAS  
The Dancing Class
by R.S.Thomas


Pretending he keeps
an aviary; looking no higher
than their feet; listening
for their precise fluttering.

And they surround him, flightless
birds in taffeta
plumage, picking up words
gratefully, as though they were crumbs.







Third time round, the immediate impact of the poem lessens, I find I don't adore the conclusion.  But I am glad to have got hold of a copy of Between Here and Now even with B&W prints of the paintings described, the exercises are sometimes brilliantly illuminating.  Also, compare William Carlos Williams and WH Auden on Brueghel's Icarus.