Fathers!!!!...Home.

Home! Family.

Father, mother, children, cousins, nieces, nephews, a few strangers thrown in, and finally a few pets. So many different pictures which may represent a family.

Traditionally, a father should be the head of the family unit. Modern family units have undergone myriads of divergent, non-identical, new and disparate transformations, it is now almost impossible to keep track of life's many and subtle idiosyncratic changes.

But, I digress. We are here to speak of my father and the fact that I am more like him than my other siblings. Needless to say, I am not the most popular of the large bunch, my head was never where they wanted it to be. I am the wanderer with my head always in the clouds, I am always searching for....well, I don't think that I am searching for anything specific. I am just letting my natural curiosity run wild and free.

The artistic nature of my father basically escaped us as we were growing up. We knew what he could do, but the long term benefits and notable significance came too late for us to reap the full benefits of his varied talents. Yes, we have artists and writers scattered all over the world. From a very young age I loved to read, I would read anything that I could get my hands on. I used to write poems, but unfortunately never kept them, not appreciating their importance back then. I wish that I had, I could look back and see how well my writing represented life around me then.

My father's memory conjures a sense of 'deja vu' . Not really a feeling of having already experienced the present situation. But more like, had I actually been there, and had I actually lived the experience?

My father had been one of those wandering souls . Artistic and restless, gifted but misunderstood. I imagine that my brain should have sensed the presence of a father, if his yearning, his need for something unseen and unknown, for finding himself , could have somehow made him be still for a moment . So I could know where he actually had been in relation to my life experiences.

I remember kind deeds and a kind face. There were many of us kids with a few 'adopted' ones thrown in, I know now how overwhelming and daunting a task it was to be the sole breadwinner, yet keep your sanity while things were working themselves out.

Though the memories are fuzzy and things were not perfect, we had a roof over our heads and I don't remember ever being hungry. Mother was always present, but you had to be gone a lot. Sometimes because you had to, and at other times because you needed to.

There had been contradictory times when I felt that you should have been there, and I truly wished that you had been, but life sometimes take turns over which we have no control.

"Oh well, I imagine I should have been more understanding thinking that my father would have had the time to teach me to ride a bike, and be there to threaten all the lurking boys with hell and damnation, scaring the holy hell out of one and all".

Like they do in the movies....

Overall, my life was no different from the many young, 'not rich but able to cope' young persons fighting to eke out a place for themselves in a very scary world.

My father was a musician, he played in a band before responsibilities overwhelmed him.

My father was an artist, he could draw any picture perfectly, he hardly did any of this. Too busy was he, trying to take care of us all.

My father was a carpenter, could build me a house, our house was always in need of repair. We always found it funny how he made everyone else's house lovely, while ours he all but neglected.

My father knew every plant, and their medicinal uses, he always knew how to make a cup of tea for the right occasion. I really wanted to learn them myself.

His penmanship was the stuff artists dreamed about. Such a talented soul was he.

In short, my father knew everything that I wanted to know.

My father had all the skills that I wanted to learn. Why are the truly artistic such wandering souls? The world being what it was , when the time came for me to learn , he was taken from this earthly existence.

My house was left unbuilt . The arts were left unlearned . On my own I was left to learn , there is still a lot not yet learned, but having life means hope springs eternal.

Yet, do not misunderstand me. My father was a kind and giving man. I imagine that he did the best he could with what life kept throwing at him. In the end, that is all that most of us can do.

Was he flawed? Yes he was, yet who amongst us is not?

On 'Father's Day', I shall send a prayer , and a blessing, in hopes that, wherever you are Father... May you find the peace you never found , while traversing this earthly plane!

I celebrate your memory with this deep and heartfelt poem. Be happy, father, wherever you are now planted.

Little Father

Li-Young Lee

1957 –

I buried my father

in the sky.

Since then, the birds

clean and comb him every morning

and pull the blanket up to his chin

every night.

I buried my father underground.

Since then, my ladders

only climb down,

and all the earth has become a house

whose rooms are the hours, whose doors

stand open at evening, receiving

guest after guest.

Sometimes I see past them

to the tables spread for a wedding feast.

I buried my father in my heart.

Now he grows in me, my strange son,

my little root who won’t drink milk,

little pale foot sunk in unheard-of night,

little clock spring newly wet

in the fire, little grape, parent to the future

wine, a son the fruit of his own son,

little father I ransom with my life.

Li-Young Lee, "Little Father" from Book of My Nights. Copyright © 2001 by Li-Young Lee. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd., boaeditions.org.

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