Dedicated with love to the
memory of UA Fanthorpe
We first met when your last breath
cooled in my palm like an egg;
you dead, and a thrush outside
sang it was morning.
I backed out of the room, feeling
the flowers freshen and shine in my arms.
The night before, we met again, to unsay
unbearable farewells, to see
our eyes brighten with re-strung tears.
O I had my sudden wish –
though I barely knew you –
to stand at the door of your house,
feeling my heartbeat calm,
as they carried you in, home, home and healing.
Then slow weeks, removing the wheelchair, the drugs,
the oxygen mask and tank, the commode,
the appointment cards,
until it was summer again
and I saw you open the doors to the gift of your garden.
Strange and beautiful to see
the roses close to their own premonitions,
the grass sweeten and cool and green
where a blackbird eased a worm into the lawn.
There you were,
a glass of lemony wine in each hand,
walking towards me always, your magnolia tree
marrying itself to the May air.
How you talked! And how I listened,
spellbound, humbled, daughterly,
to your tall tales, your wise words,
the joy of your accent, unenglish, dancey, humorous;
watching your ash hair flare and redden,
the loving litany of who we had been
making me place my hands in your warm hands,
younger than mine are now.
Then time only the moon. And the balm of dusk.
And you my mother.
When this miraculous poem was published in the Guardian to coinicide with Duffy’s appointment as Poet Laureate I made a promise to myself that I would write about this poem in the light of my feeling about all Duffy’s most powerful poetry- that it is about Resurrection and that Carol Ann Duffy explores resurrection again and again in her poetry. Demeter, Mrs Lazarus and Ann Hathaway all resurrect and reanimate relationships.They all strive to find an enduring language for persistent, immortal love. They acknowledge the glaring power of memory and the tenderness ( and ambivalence) of recollection. So very shortly I will begin the piece on Duffy and Resurrection using Larkin’s ‘The Explosion’ which remains for me one of his most profoundly moving poems and David Copperfield’s relationship with his mother and Steerforth. This is the power of summer leisure and the liberating experience of having time to think again!! Watch this space and Carol Ann Duffy’s Sheer Poetry site for the new writing!