In the beginning by Dylan Thomas

"In the beginning was the secret brain..."


Dylan Thomas told the World War II recruiting sergeant that he was incapable of killing another human being. He spent the war working for the BBC.


Philosophers, theologians, scientists, historians, prophets, priests, poets, and Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, all have their various beliefs, opinions and theories concerning the beginning. Dylan Thomas too:

In the beginning

In the beginning was the three-pointed star.
One smile of light across the empty face;
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun;
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.

In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile;
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon;
The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail
Touched the first cloud and left a sign.

In the beginning was the mounting fire
That set alight the weathers from a spark,
A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower;
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas,
Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock
The secret oils that drive the grass.

In the beginning was the word, the word
That from the solid bases of the light
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death.

In the beginning was the secret brain.
The brain was celled and soldered in the thought
Before the pitch was forking to the sun;
Before the veins were shaking in their sieve,
Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light
The ribbed original of love.

____________
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
On St. David's Day 1982 a memorial stone to the memory of Dylan Thomas was unveiled in 'Poets Corner', Westminster Abbey.
images: courtesy bbc/arts&culture