R. S. Thomas: "The Bright Field"

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 realize 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 burning 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, from Laboratories of the Spirit. © Macmillan, 1975.  

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

 

R. S. Thomas: "The Other"

There are nights that are so still
that I can hear the small owl calling
far off and a fox barking
miles away. It is then that I lie
in the lean hours awake listening
to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic
rising and falling, rising and falling
wave on wave on the long shore
by the village, that is without light
and companionless. And the thought comes
of that other being who is awake, too,
letting our prayers break on him,
not like this for a few hours,
but for days, years, for eternity.

"The Other" by R. S. Thomas, from The Echoes Return Slow. © Macmillan, 1988.

Photography credit: "Earth - Wave Wallpaper," by darkness (originally color).