I have been thinking of my father. Since he died in 1995 at the age of 89 I have not written very much about him. It is hard to begin to describe even for myself the role he played, the dimensions of the love he always showed, the confidence he made secure in me through his support which never failed, the good sense and moral strength he contributed in our shared lives. I write a good deal yet my father is a subject I find difficult to approach. It is as if I still cannot bear to say outright what I lost when my father died.
But I read, and sometimes I read poems in which I recognise the loss I still feel.
There is, for instance, the work of Raymond Carver, an American writer who died in 1988 at the age of 49. He was writing with increasing power and beauty when cancer got hold of him and killed him. He wrote many of his best pieces when he knew he was dying. Perhaps the thought of time and everything ending forced the good writing out of him. That seems strange to me. I don’t understand how anyone can do anything properly unless they are feeling they will never die.
Raymond Carver is best known as a writer of short stories. His tone is quiet, his eye is clear, his heart compassionate and his writing plain. There is a story of his called ‘Cathedral’ which is one of the best short stories I have ever read. It just tells about a young man trying to