This poem was recommended to me some time ago by one of my readers, Dave Stewart and I’m pleased to include it today. This is the note he sent with it.
Being the child of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes is quite a legacy to inherit, and yet I have always admired Frieda Hughes’ groundedness and stern self-determination. I feel the urge to post this poem of Frieda Hughes’ as I feel it to be one of her best poems to date; it deals with the very difficult subject of her brother’s untimely death in 2009.
I first heard this poem when it was read by Frieda Hughes herself on BBC Radio 3 (Private Passions, 27 Feb 2010). The poem is available from Frieda Hughes’ book “The Book Of Mirrors“.
For Nick – by Frieda Hughes (1960-)
The sun rises and sets
In spite of your absence,
Oblivious of our separation by death
Or your part in my evolution.
But your shadow remains
As if you never left; it’s mine now.
I would never have given you up
Except that you were borrowed;
To be returned to the primal clay.
Had I known that each day
Counted you off like fingers
I might have mourned sooner
The idea of impending loss.
It would have eroded
The years I thought we’d share;
That necessary ignorance was bliss
Reassuring me that nothing was amiss.
But you remain alive for me;
I hear you speak as you commit
The mundane actions of a day; you eat; you sleep;
You exist-an echo from the walls
Of every room I occupy.
The recollection of your voice
Plucks at the sinew of the instrument
I have become for you. That music
Argues with the loss of presence
The recollection of your voice
Plucks at the sinew of the instrument
I have become for you. That music
Argues with the loss of presence
That your ashes signify
And our sibling shadows dance.