Walking Away

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 fotball, 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. 

That 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 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.

- Cecil Day-Lewis