Frieda Hughes: This is how I remember my father, Ted Hughes
It’s been 25 years since the death of the poet Ted Hughes. Here, his daughter Frieda Hughes pays tribute to him with an exclusive poem written for The Independent
Our hearts are ticking clocks; 25 years ago today my father’s stopped.
I remember him younger than his death date at only sixty-eight, explaining
The speed of light or naming the constellations; his voice remains
As clear in my memory as when he walked the earth in search of poetry.
And an old friend died on Westminster Bridge on his way to a boat party.
His last act as cartoonist was to sketch himself standing alone in the dark
Waving goodbye from the pier to a boat he would not catch
As it left without him. So, I thought of the value of time as I sat in a car queue
At the flood’s edge of a storm in mid Wales on Friday.
Run-off from the fields made rivers of the roads, and for some reason
The cars that blocked exits as their engines failed, were BMWs.
I was conscious that the stoppages ate hours I could not retrieve; how long is a life
That can accommodate wastage? During delays, hold-ups, traffic jams, hours in A&E
While not being seen, being put “on hold” indefinitely by any faceless company
And HMRC without hope of an answer, or being lined up for anything in which
I am trapped and stationary, I hear the soft, persistent sigh of accumulating minutes
Gathering speed and momentum, passing me by, becoming hours, days and more,
Of empty life in which nothing is achieved, not even a sense of “being”.
The theft of my time, your time, their time, should be a chargeable crime
Stopped at source and not only in the spotlight of our end.