Ep 6. Stories of Walking Away

What makes a poem great for Shared Reading? Again, we take a closer look at a single poem, this time Cecil Day Lewis’ ‘Walking Away’, and hear stories about how it what this poem has meant to group members who have read it together in a Shared Reading setting.    Walking Away  By Cecil Day-Lewis    For Sean    It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –  A sunny day with the leaves just turning,  The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play  Your first game of football, then, like a satellite  Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away    Behind a scatter of boys. I can see  You walking away from me towards the school  With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free  Into a wilderness, the gait of one  Who finds no path where the path should be.    The hesitant figure, eddying away  Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,  Has something I never quite grasp to convey  About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching  Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.    I have had worse partings, but none that so  Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly  Saying what God alone could perfectly show –  How selfhood begins with a walking away,  And love is proved in the letting go.      If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this programme, it might help to talk about it. A Samaritan is ready to listen, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Call Samaritans free on 116 123 or visit samaritans.org.     The Reader Bookshelf    Find out more about Cecil Day Lewis at the Poetry Foundation    Find out more about The Reader – donate,get involved,join a Shared Reading Group