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 

 

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