From dusky fir
ascends the heart break
of the Swainson’s thrush,
gray-green movement
stirring the summer twilight.

At meadow’s edge my infant daughter
sturdily answers the woodland voice,
La-a-a-a-ahh; alaah!
Again and again.

Soundless tears stream,
my constricting fears
of fatherhood
released.

(Number 4 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

I confess that thirty-two years of living and nine months of preparation did not sufficiently ready me for fatherhood. Fatherhood presented major challenges, even more than that of building a log home by hand, which was (for an academic) an experience of barely controlled terror. But love had wit to win as experiences such as the one portrayed here began to soften my fears. It took a while, for I’ve always been a slow learner of the big lessons. But the log home still stands tall, and the daughter even taller.

(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)