Last night in Serum, we talked about language for God, and about the mystery of God’s absence and presence.  At one point we talked about the mataphor for God, as the cloud – the Shekinah.  We shared out experiences in dialogue.  I found it quite an emotional exchange. One of those who attended who I will not name, sent Vanessa a poem that she came across the next day, which was moving for them, so I thought in this time of Advent and expectant hope, that I would share this, as R S Thomas is one of my most favourite poets.

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 realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receeding 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.

Like no other? The same obstacle course, problems with the job,

Cash flow short, going from bed to chair,

From here to there and back again?

No. Instead

Today I heard of a friend from far away and long ago

Alive and now … and so

What’s more,

I saw a man with a black cigar and from his backpack

A protruding flower.

Today was not the same.

A note came from South Africa

To let me know another fellow was holding in his hand

At that very moment a book of mine.

It made me feel that  time and distance was not real

Between the call for miracles

But rather planned.

And before I knew it, I had taken from the shelf

The same book for myself

And said across the Ethernet:

“I have it, the same words, the same text, the same truth

And we both are less than a few inches away

Across the continents

In what we share and say;

The virtual world is tactile now,

The bridge is built

And manifest right here somehow.”

And when you who, stranger I never knew

Read these cogitations written here

We also, my dear, make common use;

My tongue, your eye, our ear…

Dirty, beautiful, strange, familiar
The city is the cocoon from which I emerged
A long time gone,
The prodigal son
Or daughter
Every city still feels like my own,
Still feels like my home
Prodigal not by my own decision
Every parting an incision
On the flesh of my heart
Too long gone I feel claustrophobic
Feel smothered
Like a child too long mothered
By an oppressive parent
The city, every city–my city–
Striking in its contrasts
Its rich, its poor, its ugly beautiful pasts
Its freedom, its oppression
All the cause of my obsession
I love each place
I can’t help having a taste
For all it has to offer
Every nation and race
Wish I had come of age
On this stage
With every turn of the page
With every turn of the corner
Crossing invisible borders
Don’t look at me and say
Where you belong you should stay
You look through me, not at me
Your vacant eyes looking past me
“If you’re not from here don’t come here”
I see the words in your eyes
As you cut me down to a size
That fits in your little world
But I am rootless and free
Can be who
And what
And where I think I should be
Don’t try and reprimand
A thing you don’t understand
What you never learned to comprehend
Every two years a new land
I am California, Colorado, Florida, D.C.
I am Boston and L.A. and every city I see
If art is an expression of self
Is the reflection of self
Then listen to me as I tell
How I see my life
And my love
And my perception of self
In every face on the street
How every city I meet
Opens up a new world
That extends out of the old
I have no luxury of hometown
No one place to settle down
I am a city girl that has been displaced
A casualty of just the way I was raised
To be unattached
So the pain doesn’t last
To be independent and strong
So when I have to move on
The change doesn’t kill me
Doesn’t break me and fill me
And now twenty years later
I have found a way to cater
To the lost feeling inside me
By choosing to find me
Myself and my home
In every place that I go
My soul in every city, not one
So I don’t have to feel so alone
So that before long
I can feel I belong
In a place that from my birth I had no claim on
So think and feel what you will
But do not doubt what you’re told
And that I tell what I feel
And that the city
Every city
Any city
Is my home
The why and the where and the reason I roam
The reason I hope
That I will one day no longer be a nomad
And finally become someone with a land.

It also somehow clearly seems, my chalice forms a broken cup,

The song I dream from my cracked lips, the bowl from which I sup

Imperfect too, a blemished thing, rides like my shirt untucked.

Yet from the grist and guts of it twists my remaining luck,

As one who wins just second place my thoughts also run amok.

From my wrist I fashion it, unclenching my tight fist a bit

Into an open palm in order not to strike a blow or hit out at anyone;

- If God were perfect and could fit together like an answered prayer,

Love would take me home to him borne on such a rarer air.

Yet truth is not enough I fear and hope but mere deceit

And from what I’ve seen everywhere, Life ends always in defeat.

For this I am guilty to declare my challenge to miracles anywhere,

God, prove me wrong, if you dare to show me nurture and not harm

Or else at least to show you care a damn with truth to accept me as I am

Not just judge my lack of charm or doom my gloom right down.

I’d like to sing of second birth and say heaven is to be found on earth

But from the dirth my dirges groan with lack of thrumming mirth

And thirst for meaning makes me bleak and black as my parched tongue

When champagne springs and angel wings are only when you’re young.

These bedfellows with twin thrones
In my head and heart and bones
Are rulers over me
And when there’s peace
There’s sobriety
When they agree
There’s harmony
When they make love
They begat bliss
No matter how painful
The issue is.

But when they’re at odds
Like feuding gods
When they’re unstable
A Cain and Abel
Fisticuffs
Hostility
O when they both do disagree, they thrash and cut and shout
And when they bleed they both bleed doubt.

Thus one must have the final say
Yes one must oversee , hold sway
So at twenty paces on a misty dawn
They turn and fire so that decision’s born.

Experience and doctrine thus settle the matter
And mostly it’s the former, not the latter
That emerges intact
And that my friend is that.

For as I’m told someone once said
That put the thought first in my head
(So that my heart O damn near burst)
“I’ll toast the pope, but conscience first”

Peter Thomas