My introduction to Dylan Thomas came from reading his famous poem, ‘Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London’. The poem was penned during WWII after a German V-2 rocket attack killed a child in London. In this poem in which art and death embrace, Thomas deals with the question of whether death is permanent or temporary. If, because of the resurrection, death is temporary, then it is acceptable, Thomas proposes, for us to mourn, for this process of temporary grief is commensurate with the temporary death.

But if death is permanent, then, according to Thomas, grief must be repressed by refusing to mourn. The poem’s final line reads, ‘After the first death, there is no other’. Its meaning is perhaps deliberately ambiguous. Does it point to a second death? Or does it betray a more pessimistic belief about death’s permanency? Little wonder that Thomas doesn’t know whether to grieve or not. Perhaps the best insight we have of Thomas’ own hope is in the first line: ‘Never until the mankind making’. Is there a suggestion here that Thomas will mourn, but not yet; that he will mourn when God’s word spoken at time’s beginning is heard again, ‘Let there be light’?

Thomas goes on to both affirm and enrich the movement of life and death by sowing his ‘salt seed’. He can do this because although he is journeying and mourning through the valley of the shadow of death, he maintains an uncertain hope that the mourning will end. Moreover, Thomas’ poem suggests that were it not for the resurrection, ‘the stations of the breath’, to come, then all humanity has been betrayed.

For those living in or near St Andrews, The Byre is hosting ‘Dylan Thomas; Return Journey’. More information here.