The Bright Field

The Bright Field is a poem by R. S. Thomas, and it was this poem that came to mind just at the moment when I saw this view. I was at Deer Leap on the Mendip Hills and had been taking photographs of the sunset out to the west when I turned and was taken with how the light was being cast across the fields.

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 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 your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.