timely request

Sister Sarah has asked that I post R. S. Thomas’ The Bright Field for you. Quite appropriate, really, since the sun has lured a friend from Glasgow across the water and we are going in search of bluebells.  (so congregation, a last minute change of schedule: I’m off duty today, working on Wednesday.)

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 lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as you youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

–R. S. Thomas