Rubob Enters on Soft Foot

As Rubob crawled quietly into bed in his plaid flannel pajamas after a long day -- a day in which mist had shrouded the Meadows and a thick fog had crept over the Senate hearing he was following with interest in the news -- he looked fondly over at Tine, who had seemingly fallen asleep over a book of poems.

"What's she been reading now?" he wondered.

Rubob reached for the book, "Poems of R. S. Thomas," which Tine had left open with the pages face down on the bed.

"The Moor," Rubob read.

"It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God was there made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours,
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart's passions -- that was praise
Enough; and the mind's cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread."

"Yes, Tine would like that one," Rubob thought, with a moistening of the eye. "The meadows were her moors today, and she entered them on soft foot."

And then, inspired by R. S. Thomas, he thought, "I think I'll go downstairs and get a slice of bread." Rubob is fond of bread at all hours of the day and night.

When he returned to bed, he picked up his own book, "The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses."

"I never know what she's thinking," Rubob thought. "Her mind is all misted over, and then there's a moment when everything's suddenly clear."



"Our walks are something like a guided tour of what's going on in there," Rubob thought, returning to his exegesis of "Ulysses."