TO end our Easter sequence here is a reflection by the great modern Welsh ­­­ cleric-poet R S Thomas.

Wrestling with belief and doubt, he finds an ultimate affirmation in the struggle itself. The piece is included in R S Thomas: Uncollected Poems, edited by Tony Brown and Jason Walford Davies (Bloodaxe Books, 2013, £9.95).

EASTER: I APPROACH

Easter. I approach

the years' empty tomb.

What has time done with

itself? Is the news worth

the communicating? The word's

loincloth can remember

little. A thin, cold wind

blows from the abysm

that I gawp into. But supposing

there were bones; the darkness

illuminated like a museum?

In glass cases I have

peered at the brittle bundles,

exonerating my conscience

with mortality's tears.

But here, true to my name,

I have nothing to hold on

to, an absence so much richer

than a presence, offering

instead of the skull's

leer an impalpable possibility

for faith's fingertips to explore.

2009