I had forgotten
the old quest for truth
I was here for Other cares
held me: urgencies
of the body; a girl
beckoned; money
had never appeared
so ethereal; it was God's blood
circulating in the veins
of creation; I partook
of it like Communion, lost
myself on my way
home, with the varying voices
on call. Moving backward
into a receding
future, I lost the use
of perspective, borrowing poetry
to buy my children
their purpose. The past was a poor
king, rendering his crown down
for the historian. Every day
I went on with that
metallic warfare in which
the one casualty is love.
by R. S. Thomas
from Laboratories of the Spirit (1975)
Tag: receding future
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
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 your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
by R. S. Thomas
from Laboratories of the Spirit (1975)
Rambling At The Bridge Head 