#CultureDeclares

A while back. Not so long ago.

An email from my agent came, forwarded from Letters to the Earth. The request was for letters, to the earth, to be read at various venues, by people. Protest letters, love letters. Could I write one, would I write one.

This is what I wrote.

When I was young I would lie, pressed to the earth, eyes wide to the skies. I would watch you in your hundreds, criss-cross, hunt on the wing, layers of birds, some so high, seen only as dark commas against the blue, some so low to skim the reaching seeds of long grass.

When I was young I believed you carried the promise of summer sun on your wings.

When I was young I watched as you gathered mud in your mouth to build a home beneath the eaves of the houses of humans. Architect, potter, parent. I watched your shadow rise and fall, heard your children call, saw you answer them with food, watched them fledge.

When I was young I marvelled as you gathered, toward summer’s end, small dots on wires like wild music, fast, furious rhythm, written against the sky. 

When I was young I didn’t know the distance you travelled, away from my winter, to warmer lands. I didn’t know how you carried in your bodies the maps of the earth, the paths of the flight, scenting the land, knowing its shape, each rock and stream and tree and river and ocean. I didn’t know how this knowledge was born in the egg, before egg became bird became flight, but I knew you were a miracle. Every single soul.

Once some believed you slept all winter beneath the ice in ponds.

Once some believed the Earth is flat.

Now some believe climate change is fiction.

But now, when I lie on my back in the long grass, breathing its scent, eyes wide to the sky, my heart still lifts to see your wings, though you are now so few. Each year more sky, more space, and each single swallow more precious for that. 

And I still marvel to see you gather as autumn scents the air, still writing your wild music on the wires in the sky. But now the music is a lament, more space between each note, a song of praise and loss, an elegy for the ghosts of gone birds.

And I know, I cannot live without you.

And I sent a swallow, and now she flies with the Letters to the Earth and it is, for me, beautiful to see her alongside protestors in London.

And alongside my letter there are many others, now published online, for many to read, to gather, to sing, to shout for change. But the one that has moved me most, in its words and delivery is this, by Nick Drake.

‘I am the future, but before I appear,
Please – close the scrolls of information,
Let the laptop sleep,
Sit still
And shut your eyes.
Listen – Things are going to change’#Fleabag star #AndrewScott with his sister Hannah present @nickfdrake ‘s #LetterToTheEarth pic.twitter.com/UgpJmRSlKr

— CultureDeclaresEmergency (@CultureDeclares) April 12, 2019

And here, written. Because sometimes we need the voice inside our heads.

The Future Speaks

Dear mortals -

I know you are busy with your colourful lives;

You grow quickly bored,

And detest moralizing.

I have no wish to waste the little time that remains

On arguments and heated debates.

I wish I could entertain you

With some magnificent propositions and glorious jokes;

But the best I can do is this:

I haven’t happened yet; but I will.

I am the future, but before I appear,

Please -

Close the scrolls of information,

Let the laptop

Sleep,

Sit still

And shut your eyes.

Listen –

Things are going to change -

Don’t open your eyes, not yet! -

I’m not trying to frighten you.

Think of me not as a wish or a nightmare

But as a story you have to tell yourselves -

Not with an ending

In which everyone lives happily ever after,

Or a B-movie apocalypse,

But maybe starting with the line

“To be continued…”

And see what happens next.

Remember this;

I am not written in stone

But in time –

So please don’t shrug and say

What can we do,

It’s too late, etc, etc, etc…

Dear mortals,

You are such strange creatures

With your greed and your kindness,

And your hearts like broken toys;

You carry fear with you everywhere

Like a tiny god

In its box of shadows.

You love shopping and festivals

And good food.

You love to dance

In the enchantment of time

Like angels in a forest of mirrors.

Your lives are held

In the beautiful devices

Familiar in your hands,

Touch screen to touch screen

Connected but alone.

Perhaps you lie to yourselves

Because you’re afraid of the dark.

But always remember;

I am here, waiting.  

We are in this together,

Face to face and eye to eye.

I hold you in my hands

As I am held in yours.

We are made for each other.

Now – open your eyes

And tell me what you see.

Nick Drake

Is the future immortal? Tell me, when you open your eyes, what do you see? Face to face and eye to eye with the future and the time for change is now.

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