Hour
Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour
bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.
We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers
or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.
For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair
like treasure on the ground; the Midas light
turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here
we are millionaires, backhanding the night
so nothing dark will end our shining hour,
no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit
hung from the blade of grass at your ear,
no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit
than here. Now, Time hates love, wants love poor,
but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.
Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Hour’ appears in her extended exploration of a love affair, Rapture. Here in her ‘Hour’ love is at a height, intense, precious and perfectly in accord. No surprise then that Duffy deploys the sonnet form, in order to reflect this traditional gift of love. Like Andrew Marvell’s famous poem ‘To his Coy mistress’ the romantic subject matter of this poem is explored in relation to time. For Time is our record of mortality, the yardstick of our inevitable passing and subsequent disappearance from life’s games, however joyous, however enduring.
If time can be viewed therefore as our enemy because it mercilessly marches on, through our hopes and fears, destroying our physicality and removing our connections, then this poem also reveals time’s invaluable gift to lovers- its sense of love as epiphany and revelation .For Love can halt time; it can elevate the moment of intimacy to a level of intense, transcendency so that certain moments become ‘timeless’ or even dare i say, ‘timefull’? One of these moments is recorded here, a moment where nature seems benignly watchful and protective of this loving pair.
Love bargains with time even more when the love appears secret or taboo. Moments are borrowed or bought in excahnge for what? What does time demand in exchange for one hour with ‘you’ , one hour’s intimacy in a day owned by other things, other responsibilities or people? What indeed? More in my next blog when I shall go through the poem.
Janet Lewison