It is so simple
He heard the wanderer say
While he lay sleeping in sun
Propped up against the fence
On hill-top field:
 

There was the image, the sound,
Of that valley stream which years ago
Had often drawn him down from where Corner Lodge
Lay, a whole century settled, beside the bend
Not quite half way
Along the steep heather-strewn hill
And where he, his wife, their cats, enjoined some years
Of restful life
Before his selfish self dishonourably sequestered
Such happiness
Away.

Yet it was warm, this February sun,
And so he dreamed such peaceful parts of his past
Until his wanderer spoke
Again:
 

It is so simple to live as we can live
Settled and focused on only what we see,
On only where we can walk on one day's
Walking.

But clouds came, covering, awakening
Because warmth went
And he - aching from his half century of life - rose
To descend down
To where no one
Waited.
 

Yet there would be dreams, his dreams,
As he sat at night, cold, before the fire:
His dreams, never quite believed,
Of warm times when a woman would once again wait
To welcome him
Home.
And they would smile, as he - she, they - had smiled
Bound in warm wordless love.

So he sighed - well over half sad -
Because he knew now
As the calling buzzard, the grass, the trees,
The very earth around him knew
The living silent knowledge
That grew as grass grows green
In sun
 
 

DW Myatt