Evening
The archer with time
as his arrow–has he broken
his strings that the rainbow
is so quiet over our village?
Let us stand, then, in the interval
of our wounding, till the silence
turn golden and love is
a moment eternally overflowing.
I'm not sure what Thomas would have made of social media. But I am certain beyond all doubt he would hate and fume and foam at the ubiquitous postings of sunset photographs, often edited by software to exaggerate, highlight, select and effectively recreate and improve what is one of nature's most consistent perfections. Such a private mind and soul as Thomas would be appalled at the promiscuity and shamelessness of the selfie, the illustrated reports of food eaten, the accumulation of trivia over years of our online story. And chief amongst the things that would ignite his ire to a white phosphorescence would be reproduced sunsets, digital images which for all their photographic quality and technical wizardry he would dismiss as no better than painting by numbers while blindfolded.
Sunsets are for watching, waiting, and wanting. The sunset communicates, during those moments and minutes of the daily dying of the sun, deep things to ponder, and awakens long hidden longings that come out of human woundedness and the instinct to worship. This short poem expresses, better than the camera, the spirituality of nature in which Thomas lost himself, and found himself. The rainbow is the sign of the covenant, a promise of mercy, a bow without the string to propel the arrow. But time is the arrow, and it wounds humanity with mortality, so that the dying of the sun each day is a reminder that each day's passing is a sign of our own daily dying.
"Let us stand then, in the interval of our wounding…" That is both an act of faith and an attitude of worship. Time watching the sunset, and pondering its meaning is not time wasted, but time redeemed, in the golden moment when eternity intersects with these units of time measured by colour, light and silence. The paradox of a moment eternally overflowing is already resolved; not any moment, but this moment. Why? Because it is love that is the overflow, and the superfluity of love the signal and symbol of an eternity in which love is not only the raison d'etre, but the source of Being itself. In this poem, as in several others in this series, Thomas imagines eternity suffusing time; but here sunlight is pouring over the horizon, overarched by the rainbow of mercy, a landscape painted in light and shadow, benevolence and woundedness, a masterpiece of the Creator's originality, every day.
The photo, with apologies to R S Thomas, was taken on Brimmond Hill, at 3.30pm in mid-December.
Leave a Reply