Dunmore writes new poem, "The Duration", in response to Cynthia Asquith's diaries
Two of Cynthia Asquith's brothers and many of her close friends were killed in the first world war. It was government policy not to repatriate the bodies of soldiers killed overseas, and so their families never saw a coffin or attended a funeral. Instead, there was silence, or terrible suspense about those "Missing, believed killed". The end of hostilities meant the end of killing, but it also crushed any hope that the dead might, somehow, return. The duration of the war gave way to a permanence of mourning.
"The Duration" by Helen Dunmore
Here they are are on the beach where the boy played
for fifteen summers, before he grew too old
for French cricket, shrimping and rock pools.
Here is the place where he built his dam
year after year. See, the stream still comes down
just as it did, and spreads itself on the sand
into a dozen channels. How he enlisted them:
those splendid spades, those sunbonneted girls
furiously shoring up the ramparts.
Here they are on the beach, just as they were
those fifteen summers. She has a rough towel
ready for him. The boy was always last out of the water.
She would rub him down hard, chafe him like a foal
up on its legs for an hour and trembling, all angles.
She would dry carefully between his toes.
Here they are on the beach, the two of them
sitting on the same square of mackintosh,
the same tartan rug. Quality lasts.
There are children in the water, and mothers patrolling
the sea's edge, calling them back
from the danger zone beyond the breakers.
How her heart would stab when he went too far out.
Once she flustered into the water, shouting
until he swam back. He was ashamed of her then.
Wouldn't speak, wouldn't look at her even.
Her skirt was sopped. She had to wring out the hem.
She wonders if Father remembers.
Later, when they've had their sandwiches
she might speak of it. There are hours yet.
Thousands, by her reckoning.
From "Lady Cynthia Asquith: Diaries 1915-1918"
"I am beginning to rub my eyes at the prospect of peace. I think it will require more courage than anything that has gone before … One will have to look at long vistas again, instead of short ones, and one will at last fully recognise that the dead are not only dead for the duration of the war."
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