National Poetry Day

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" ... selfhood begins with a walking away.
And love is proved in the letting go." C. Day Lewis - Walking Away

I've loved poetry since my late teens; the way emotion and feelings can be distilled into a few words. I first read the poem 'Walking Away' (for Sean) when I was about nineteen, and years before I had children myself, but I could totally empathise with Lewis in the anguish at witnessing the first shaky, tentative steps away of his son - the desire to protect balanced against delight at witnessing independence and growth. Robert Frost and John Betjeman are two of my other favourites. A tiny bit from the latter's 'A Subaltern's Love Song' --

"Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish’d and burnish’d by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament – you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn."

My husband used to write quite a lot of poetry, mostly with his trusty fountain pen and green ink. I don't think I can be very inspirational as he's not written much lately. This is a short rhyme by Steve which encapsulates a feeling I'm sure a lot of us will have experienced.

Reunion

Our youth hung suspended between us,
And neither could quite start recall
It was not as if friendship had ended.
How could we have been friends at all?

Enjoy National Poetry Day!