An Unseen

I watched love leave, turn, wave, want not to go,
depart, return;
late spring, a warm slow blue of air, old-new.
Love was here; not; missing, love was there;
each look, first, last.

Down the quiet road, away, away, towards
the dying time,
love went, brave soldier, the song dwindling;
walked to the edge of absence; all moments going,
gone; bells through rain

to fall on the carved names of the lost.
I saw love’s child uttered,
unborn, only by rain, then and now, all future
past, an unseen. Has forever been then? Yes,
forever has been.

Carol Ann Duffy (1955 –

S1 … Carol Ann Duffy uses few words and grammar to accentuate the way love is articulated in everyday life. Love, or perhaps intense feelings, is always associated with personal departure whether permanent or not and the return greeting after absence if there is one. This depart-return cycle is portrayed in the season of late spring the old becoming new again (old-new) expressing the repeat of nature; of love. S1 ending with the ubiquitous nature of love in terms of looking and seeing another from first sight to the last sight.

S2 … now we have specific circumstance – the departure of soldiers to war – ‘the song dwindling’ gives the impression of soldiers moving away into the distance and I do like the way CAD expresses their precarious situation – ‘the edge of absence’ and the likelihood of a permanent departure, likewise equating death as giving no future to the soldier – ‘all moments going’.

S3 … interesting how a Church service in the rain with inscriptions to dead soldiers is implied indirectly by CAD’s words … and how love’s child is uttered and then unborn – a telling statement to the death of the young … who have no future and their future is their completed life – now in the forever … they are the forever has been … love is always the forever has been.

A very poignant poem defining grief and the suffering of those left behind. Grief comes in many shapes and sizes. Those that went or go to war usually have some expectation that things may not turn out well and they may not return. But life is fragile and the unseen can always occur, a car coming round a corner on the wrong side of the road. The atrocity in Manchester last week was totally unseen. An alien philosophy carried out by a warped mind contrary to the natural flow of decency and respect for humanity. My heart and thoughts go out to all those families in grief. For so many young people their future forever has been.