Walking Away

• • Like a satellite wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
• • a half-fledged thing set free
• • That hesitant figure, eddying way like a winged seed
• Selfhood begins with a walking away , and love is proved in the letting go
• • I have had worse partings, but none that so gnaws at my mind still
• ABACA rhyme scheme 


  Could represent regularity of boys footsteps as he walks away from his father or the unwavering paternal love
• ABACA rhythm is irregular 



  New experience of independence
• • Cecil Day Lewis 1956
• Passive (speaker) and active (son) language 



  could suggest that although the son has walked away the father will always be there to support him
• First person narration 



  conveys personal nature of the poem
• Enjambment and caesura 



  adding to personal tone and authenticity of the poem
• First two stanzas describe the day and final two reflect on the memory

  shows it still pains him
• Family Love/ admiration 



  climbing my grandfather, followed or mother any distance
• • Acceptance that all parents must let go of their kids