Note by JRW: The following is taken from a hand written letter, by Myatt, addressed to me. It was dated Nearing the Winter Solstice.






A Learning

What has been learnt, these past thirty-five and more years involving as those years did a great diversity of experiences, of travels? Once again I feel - as I sit here leaning against a centuries old leaf-bare Oak tree on a hill between a copse and stream in that rural England I love - the need to reflect upon that past that contained so much love, so much hatred, so much violence, some compassion and many deaths.

There is a road, three miles distant, whose traffic I cannot hear and, under this warmish sun, days before Winter Solstice, it is easy to ignore for moments the intrusive modern world I loathe. There, between hegderow bramble and muddy field, scrapings in scraggy grass where hungry rabbits have dug for roots. There, by my booted feet, the leaf litter which, a few moments ago, I was sure moved, a little, as some unseen living thing ventured forth before this bearded Barbour-coated being moved to reach into a pocket for some paper and a pen.

Now, although I have a home - or at least a room in a farmhouse on a farm - and work to keep me fed, I am alone, again, and there is a bumbling yearning for those days this year when freedom was a tent: then, before I fell in love, again. There seems, in memory, such a simple warmth, there, for I can so easily forget the many cold days of rain; the sleepless nights; the weariness; the boredom that bore down upon me and, more than once, almost crushed me. Only so many ways to spend those long, those very long, rain-soaked hours and dismal, dull, unwarm days. Only so many ways to think; to rest; only so many miles to walk before hunger, fatigue, sameness, set in after which I would gratefully almost endearingly embrace sleep. Often, miles walked with aching head because walking was at least something to do even when there was no where in particular to go, no goal, nothing to strive for. And yet: the sunny days of languid softness redeemed them all. One warm or hot day - cloud or landscape watching from atop some hill, when I would lie upon my coat in warm or warming grass, while birds sang, or the music of warm wind charmed me - was worth the wait. For there was something else, there: some presence, some beauty, which captivated and kept me there, waiting, week upon week, month upon passing month, for another fleeting glimpse, for one more fleeting touch.


So it was that I then, as now, remembered a wisdom of years ago, forgotten in the artificial turmoil of political, religious, plots, of chasing ideological schemes and promethean dreams. Remembered especially when I, only months ago, in her, my married lover's house, awoke and she, my new love, lay warm, naked and half-asleep beside me, our limbs, our bodies, our feelings, entwined, and there was no need to speak, to leave. We seemed one, then, as when our passion joined us and we would lie, wordless, looking, smiling, gently moving, touching, in that beautiful calmness of love.

Yet, although I have lost her now, I remembered then why it was that growth and change came; why people gathered, often huddled, together to live in some hamlet, village, or some town. Why work, hard and long, when some machine can quarter the effort, the time? Why alone when there can be, should be, sharing, a new life, a new being, a bliss born from the joining of two people's love?

There was a need there, an easy way; a break from that wearying toil, that hunger, that desolation, that often came with hard, rural, living. Why toil, four hours, with an axe, in rainy dismal cold, when one albeit noisy hand-held machine can cut, chop, as much in one half hour? Why walk, seven miles sweating, to the nearest town, lumbering back with goods upon the back, when one car, albeit noisy, distant made, can take us, in comfort? There is no blame, no shame, here. People did what they did for reasons, because of feelings, desires, failings, I understand.

Yet things, surely, have gone far too far. So much lost; so little gain. There is, can be, a balance between our gain and Nature's loss: between our comfort, Her life. For we are slowly killing Her.


There is, should be, only gentle laughter, honour, sharing, love; only that connection, that nexus that keeps us close to where we can grow, breathe, settle as we should grow, breath and settle: close to the realness of Her living, Her giving. All else is insufficient, a liability; a danger, a death to She who brings us, gives us, life and harmony within life, and that gentle real love which when honourably shared between two people can take us far beyond what we are, alone.

I know this. I feel this. I am this. But, well-over a half century gone, greying and slowing with this age of mine, and there arises, still, in moments, that war-bringing passion, that chasing of, demand for, thrilling, life-bringing, change, that distancing from the quiet, gentle, rural being I am, should be, can be, must be. The truth is, I am no different from others. I only feel, know, what is beyond the limit of our senses. I only feel, know, this beautiful being whose very life is this tree, this soil, these greening things which surround me. And yet I am like they who fastly speed along the unseen road, needing, desiring, yearning for the warmth of a home where waits the person I love, who loves me. We can I feel, I know, achieve a balance.

If I have a dream beyond my personal dream of love - beyond the hope of forgetting the sorrow of how I have lost so much, so many times - it is of we human beings learning, changing, coming to know and understand these so simple, important, things: feeling again Her beauty; sensing again where we belong, and so dwelling in honour and with love in a way which does not harm Her manifold emanations.

But now: now, I have sat here, thinking, being, writing, for so long that dull clouds covered the Sun which has descended down to bring the dimness of twilight. So it is that I cannot, this day, write any more.


DW Myatt