Life is not hurrying

A lovely, leisurely walk with the kids this afternoon, through Rectory park and into Newhall - down to the boardwalk which we sat on the edge of and had a mini-picnic, with hot chocolate and coffee to warm us up - but then the sun came out and took over that job. We saw all sorts of birds, several human friends too, and jumped in lots of muddy puddles.

This was all after an equally leisurely morning, reading in bed and drinking tea. I enjoyed a poem (in a book of poems that arrived today that I think I’ll use this lent - “The word in the wilderness: a poem a day for lent and Easter” by Malcolm Guite - poems - some his, some classics, some he thinks have been wrongly overlooked). Anyhow, this was the poem:

The Bright Field, by R. S. Thomas

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, not 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.