Sunday, September 25, 2016

Poetry in Ordinary Time: R.S. Thomas

The gift of this poem was passed to me this morning by a colleague, who read it on someone else's blog.  It was so beautiful...and so a propos of the season as well as the times -- and this morning's sermon --  that it needed sharing here:

The Bright Field - R. S. Thomas
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
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.