Bright field

My very favourite field. A swathe of contoured pasture running along the western slope of the Gwaun valley, old trees rooted into rocky outcrops and sheep grazing on emerald grass. Something about it stops me in my tracks every time.
Once when I was a small child  my mother took me along on a visit to someone who had a son about my age and I was invited to go with him to look at his toys. Chief among them was a model farm with miniature animals arranged over a large piece of green fabric that was draped, hillside-like, over some chairs. I wanted this so much (almost as much as I wanted to be that boy, so confident in his ownership.)

 I wonder if this field's attraction for me harks back to that moment of intense yearning?

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 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.


RS Thomas