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.
R.S. Thomas
What I really like about this poem is the break between verses - such an eloquent pause between 'hurrying' and 'on'! The other thing, of course, is the sentiment that eternal life is here and now if we take notice of it. One of my top ten favourite poems.
Yes a very good poem; echoes “East Coker”, doesn’t it? “You shall not think "the past is finished" // Or "the future is before us”…
ReplyDeleteIt has something breathless about it, too. I like the break too; and he does it again at the line scale, with “turning / aside”.
What I like here is that calm vision of what is important; and this “I must give all”, by which the will surrenders to the vision.
Oooh good stuff! So I can happily carry on painting away and not think at all about bloody exhibitions - just do it, ignore the stupid pressured nonesense of the art world - and while I'm doing it I might get an inkling of what the field looks like even if I never find the treasure :-)
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