SOURCE TEXT:
Walking Away

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, 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 have 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

QUESTIONS:
Compare how poets present family relationships in 'Walking Away' and in one other poem from 'Love and relationships'.

1. **Introduction:** Choose your second poem (e.g., 'Mother, any distance'). State the main similarity between the poems (e.g., both explore the pain and necessity of a child's separation from a parent) and a key difference (e.g., they use different central metaphors to do so). 2. **Paragraph 1 (Theme of Separation):** Analyse how 'Walking Away' presents separation. Focus on the painful imagery ('Wrenched from its orbit') and natural similes ('like a winged seed'). Then, analyse how your chosen poem presents separation. In 'Mother, any distance', this is shown through the metaphor of the tape measure stretching but not breaking. 3. **Paragraph 2 (Poetic Voice/Perspective):** Compare the perspectives of the speakers. In both poems, the speaker is the parent reflecting on their child growing up. Discuss the tone – in 'Walking Away' it is melancholic and reflective ('Gnaws at my mind still'). In 'Mother, any distance', the tone is also reflective but perhaps more focused on the practicalities of the child's new life. 4. **Paragraph 3 (Structure and Form):** Compare the structures. 'Walking Away' has a regular ABACA rhyme scheme and steady rhythm, reflecting the steady passage of time and the recurring nature of the memory. 'Mother, any distance' is loosely based on a sonnet form but breaks the rules, perhaps reflecting the breaking of the traditional parent-child bond as the child moves towards independence. 5. **Conclusion:** Summarise your comparative points. Conclude by stating what overall message each poet conveys about family relationships. For example, both Day-Lewis and Armitage suggest that true parental love involves letting go, even though it is a painful process.