THAT great Welsh cleric-poet R S Thomas seemed often to agonise about his faith, but these two little reflections by him show him in tranquil, though no less visionary, mood. The first appears in his Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Phoenix Press, £14.99); the second in R S Thomas: Uncollected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95).
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 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 CLIMBER
Climbing mountains was climbing
himself. From the summit
he could look down and see below
the problems he had left behind.
Thoughts were like flowers on
the ledges, high up and far out,
the best needing to be plucked
dangerously and smelling of courage.
At night there was this mountain
above him, dark as the cave
of sleep he would enter and emerge
from tomorrow to resume his climbing.
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