analysis of unloving by carol ann duffy

Unloving – Carol Ann Duffy


Learn from the winter trees, the way
they kiss and throw away their leaves,
then hold their stricken faces in their hands
and turn to ice;


or from the clocks,
looking away, unloving light, the short days
running out of things to say; a church
a ghost ship on a sea of dusk.


Learn from a stone, its heart-shape meaningless,
perfect with relentless cold; or from the bigger moon,
implacably dissolving in the sky, or from the stars, *unyieldingly, unbendingly
lifeless as Latin verbs. *simile


Learn from the river,
flowing always somewhere else, even its name,
change, change; learn from a rope
hung from a branch like a noose, a crow cursing, *simile- lexical field of death


a dead heron mourned by a congregation of flies.
Learn from the dumbstruck garden, summer’s grave,
where nothing grows, not a Beast’s rose; *Biblical allusion-Satan
from the torn veil of a web;
from our daily bread: *Biblical allusion – Lord’s Prayer
perpetual rain, nothing like tears, unloving clouds;
language unloving love; even this stale air
unloving all the spaces where you were. *anaphora