“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 proved in the letting go.” LoveChildrenGrowing UpParenthood Author:C.Day-Lewis