ben at lake michigan, april 2010
Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;
and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin
but his own smile, or one I'd rediscovered.
Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin
and the true path was as lost to me as ever
when you cut in front and lit it as you ran.
See how the true gift never leaves the giver:
returned and redelivered, it rolled on
until the smile poured through us like a river.
How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!
I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.
Don Paterson,
"Waking with Russell"
Hi James
ReplyDeleteI just spent the day at Indiana dunes. I still love going there every year now. Thank you for showing me such a wonderful place.
This poem is fitting for how a father should feel about his son. It's a great bond one father has with his son
Liz: i'm glad you get to spend some time there :-)
Deleteit is a shame that our cultural attitudes make it so rare for a father and son to show physical affection ... it should be perfectly normal ...
.
you see, (i try to) how we have in our culture ruined our idea of parent and child, but especially of father and son, and how this poem rectifies it. the intimacy is what is important and the intimacy is what we too often lack, or balk away from. "face-to-face like lovers" and "I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever." thank you don Peterson. and thank you for showing it to me here:) after all, our relationships as parents to our children are arbitrary, our ages, who is where upon the linear line of journey a mishap of time. if our lives were instead concentric rings forced outward from their cores in symphonic blusters, visible vibrations, it would reveal our music making together, our humanness more the equal.
ReplyDeleteben, such a little boy smile, but man too? what could this possibly mean? might it mean, while he is a man, you are also a boy?
while i saw this post a day or two ago, its significance arrives in me this morning at the most important time. i begin to make raspberry pie while the children sleep:) i cry))))
xo
erin
erin: this intimacy between people -- i know you understand it and want it -- is really all there is. yes, we are both men and both boys -- it is only an accident that i happen to be farther along in age ... and time may reverse our roles, too ...
Delete.
An awesome poem, overflowing with wisdom. Would that all fathers felt that way toward their sons... I'm (gulp) 59 years young and my 84 year old mother still calls me her baby girl. It slays me every time she says it. xo
ReplyDeleteMarion: i think many fathers feel this way, maybe most ... i think it is nearly impossible to hold a child, son or daughter, and not feel amazement at the body, at physical reality, and want contact, confirmation, knowledge ... but our culture gives so few opening for fathers and sons ... with daughters it is different ... with mothers it is different ... i'm not quite sure why it is like this, but fathers have to silence an internal censor in order to touch their sons ...
Delete.
i was thinking about the same thing as erin, wanting to quote the same lines, striking in many ways, so telling about our culture, our tabus, our needs...
ReplyDeleteand i ask, both of you, whether you have seen Sokurov's film, Father and Son? (Mother and Son is amazing, it is my preferred one). Because it struggles to show the many and complicated aspects of this relationship, and because it has led to quite a scandal because of the scenes of physical intimacy between father and son which it portrays - they do, indeed, look like lovers (and of course there was the talk of Sokurov's being gay). here it is an article about this, and Sokurov's response to these accusations is worth-reading. especially this statement, which, again, goes hand in hand with erin's thoughts here:
But why does the father look so young, not so much older than his adolescent son? "It is because the ages of the father and the son are separated by only one step of life, and each sees himself in the other. The son sees his father in the none-too-distant future and decides if he wants to be like that or not. There’s really only one character. There’s no father, no son, but one human soul that can look at itself in a magic crystal."
i forgot the link :-)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/movies/film/documents/03959028.asp
Roxana: what an amazing and important film!! thank you for the recommendation and the link :-))
Delete.