Who are we who wander here
By feet only
Carrying all our hopes, dreams and possessions
Upon our back
Strong now and warm as the Sun which ends
Another August?

Who are we who sit here
Upon a craggy crop
Watching a world below,
Our bath a Tarn, shivering-cold
But welcome as the brief swim which cleans us?
 

And yet: when I descend down for that Benefit
Which keeps me
I am trapped while need to gather food lasts
For there are many people, some who stare
And that vehicle-assisted movement, that noise
Which severs us from our sustaining soil.

Who are we who live so simply alone
We keep a month of words the way that wind-shaped tree
Kept its leaves in storm
Until the Sun, bringing September,
Coloured them to then loosen them week-slowly
When they fell with no haste, no noise,
No time that was not their time?
 

Who are we few but the hidden quiet ones
Saving ourselves from death.

But who will follow me as I followed
Those, centuries-living, who lived
To keep alive through such wordless living
That love which is Her love
And which alone can save Her, our home,
From extinction?
 

DW Myatt