When a Man Loses a Child

I love reading poetry, and envy those, such as Mizzy and Cosy, who write it.

There are two poems whihc stick out because they deal with a man’s reaction to the loss of a child.

I’ve known several women who’ve lost children, either as babies or as adults. There are several women on these boards who have suffered this tragedy. Only one word can sum up their reactions – inconsolable.

Men are inconsolable, too, but in a different way (I know, I am generalising horribly here).

There are two ways in which a man can lose a child – by death (“the needle that pierces the heart”) most tragically.I’ll post a poem about that next week.

The other way is by separating from the mother. This can hit a man very hard. He has to get used to seeing a child and not feeling a proper father to that child. Many men have to handle this, and do handle it successfully. But some men for various reasons have to say goodbye and the pain is terrible. One man I knew spent all night awake so that he could see his child sleep.

This poem tries to describe the pain. It was written in the fifties, by a man called WD Snodgrass (yes), and is part of a series of poems about the separation.His feelings are compared to those of a fox whose paw is trapped, and he is forced to bite his leg off, limping away and leaving the leg behind.

The whole sequence, for anybody who is interested,  can be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42794/hearts-needle

Winter again and it is snowing;

Although you are still three

You are already growing

Strange to me.

You chatter about new playmates, sing

Strange songs; you do not know

‘Hey ding-a-ding’

Or where I go

Or when I sang for bedtime, ‘Fox

Went out on a chilly night’,

Before I went for walks

And did not write;

You never mind the squalls and storms

That are renewed long since;

Outside, the thick snow swarms

Into my prints

And swirls out by warehouses, sealed,

Dark cowbarns, huddled, still,

Beyond to the blank field,

The fox’s hill

Where he backtracks and sees the paw,

Gnawed off, he cannot feel;

Conceded to the jaw

Of toothed, blue steel.

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