{"id":66718,"date":"2014-02-14T15:00:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=66718"},"modified":"2014-03-07T13:57:16","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T18:57:16","slug":"r-s-thomass-luminary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/02\/14\/r-s-thomass-luminary\/","title":{"rendered":"R. S. Thomas\u2019s \u201cLuminary\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"light<\/a>

Photo: Andr\u00e9 Mouraux, via Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

I wrote in my journal, \u201cIt is Valentine’s Day. Very good weather. I walked through Central Park feeling lonely and benign and so happy for everyone I saw who was in love, or starting to be in love. I have come to accept that that kind of thing is not meant for me, but that is not a sad thought: there are many ways to love, and be loved, and live a rich life anyway. I will be okay!\u201d I was eighteen.<\/p>\n

At the time, I didn\u2019t know the poem \u201cLuminary\u201d by R. S. Thomas; I wish I had. A friend would introduce me to his work the next year. This poem, which so captures a certain wistful quality, came to me even later; it is one of the \u201crediscovered poems\u201d anthologized a few years ago with Thomas\u2019s other uncollected works.<\/p>\n

Those who know Thomas will recognize certain tropes: the elevation of the natural, the suspicion of institutions and \u201cthe Machine.\u201d But it is, first and foremost, a love poem. \u201cMy balance \/ of joy in a world \/ that has gone off joy\u2019s \/ standard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romantic, yes, but as even I recognized as a melodramatic spinster of eighteen, romance and love can coexist quite comfortably. This poem, to me, conjures both. <\/p>\n

\n

My luminary,
my morning and evening
star. My light at noon
when there is no sun
and the sky lowers. My balance
of joy in a world
that has gone off joy\u2019s
standard. Yours the face
that young I recognised
as though I had known you
of old. Come, my eyes
said, out into the morning
of a world whose dew
waits for your footprint.
Before a green altar
with the thrush for priest
I took those gossamer
vows that neither the Church
could stale nor the Machine
tarnish, that with the years
have grown hard as flint,
lighter than platinum
on our ringless fingers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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