You show me two faces, 

that of a flower opening 

and of a fist contracting 

like the gripping of ice. 

You speak to me with two

voices, one thundering 

on the ear's drum, the other 

one mistakeable for silence. 

Father, I said, domesticating 

an enigma; and as though 

to humour me you came. 

But there are precipices 

within you. Mild and dire, 

now and absent, like us but 

wholly other – which side 

of you am I to believe? 

R.S. Thomas