Kneeler, St. Mary’s Church, Outhgill, Mallerstang
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
The Bright Field by R S THOMAS
it is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
This image, the lit bush, reminds me of say…a shaft of sunlight, or a distant hill lit against a dark sky. Or a rainbow! There is just something, dare I say it, mystical in those moments. Nothing to do with time, not the so called eternity that awaits. Perhaps an eternity in a moment.
Well, like the sighting of a fox! What magic in that moment.
Thanks to Adrienne P in Exeter for sending me this poem.