I pinched this from India Knight's wonderful blog \link{http://timesonline.typepad.com/india_knight/2006/12/poetry.html#morehere Poetry\here}
I cried when I read this. I defy anyone not to, really.
The 25th Arvon International Poetry Prize was awarded last night to this poem by Sian Hughes. 'The Send Off', says the press release, is "a mother?s address to her child who has been buried in a hospital grave for those delivered too early to be registered as stillborn. It?s a haunting farewell to a baby that has been aborted after being diagnosed with Down?s Syndrome". The 26 stanzas echo the 26 chromosome pairings in a healthy child; there is one extra line inserted in stanza 20, "unbalancing the poem and echoing the child's diagnosis".
The Send Off
Mummy has to go now. Sorry we were late.
I brought you a flower. No, it?s dead.
When you cut them, you see, they die.
The petals were white when I left.
I was sewing your name tags.
This is your name. I know it?s no use to you now.
Home clothes are not allowed. It?s the rules.
Your shawl is taped to your parcel.
Don?t be afraid. You are not alone,
and no one has a bed with a window.
The man with the spade brings you in
from the rain. The one in black says words.
In a few weeks they?ll come back
and let in more new friends.
The view changes each time. The sky,
believe me, is not always this cold.
When I was a little girl like you
I liked to look through the banisters
and see who was calling so late.
My parents in their fancy clothes
might turn and say ?Who?s out of bed??
The visitors blew kisses. Sometimes
they saved me something special
that the grown-ups had to eat.
My darling, sleep well in your bed.
Don?t come out on the landing where it?s cold
because, you see, I won?t come home
in my long dress and necklace
and blow you kisses up the stairs.
I won?t carry you back to bed
to rub your blue feet better
or fetch blankets from the box.
No, you don?t need a bottle, cuddle,
special rabbit, teddy, bit of cloth.
You don?t even need to close your eyes.
They were born that way, sealed shut.
You are a hard lesson to learn,
soft though you are, and transparent.
There?s a mark on your forehead ?
the simple flaw that separates
the living from the dead.
It looks like I dropped you downstairs.
I didn?t. I promise. It was like this:
somebody did some counting
and when they added you up
they found one part of you didn?t match.
It?s supposed to come out even.
They call it trisomy twenty-one.
It?s not such a lucky number.
No, I know it doesn?t begin to explain
your lack of Christmas presents
or the colour of your skin. I know
the best smiles in the world come out uneven.
The Arvon Foundation
Posted by India Knight on Friday, 01 December 2006 at 10:20 AM in In the news | Permalink