That night my mother tells me
he is gone forever.
I numb, suspend
in dry shock.
-Remember everything he taught you.
-He taught me exactly how to dry
between my legs after a bath.
I’ll remember.

And I do:
I saw the towel forward and backward
on both sides of my genitals.
It works well,
leaves my crotch
feeling tingly.

(No. 41 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

One of the few specific things I recall about my father was his instructing me how to towel between my legs. He and I would occasionally drive to a large, double-sized swimming pool in Murfreesboro, 30 miles southeast of our home in Nashville. On one of these outings, in the pool’s locker room, he imparted this wisdom. It was all I could think of in answer to my mother’s attempt to reassure both herself and me on the night he died.

This daily, post-showering ritual became part of my life long ago. Readying myself for a new day, an occasional shadow of grief or anger will surprise me, all these years later.

(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.)

I found one of the guilty pleasures of fatherhood to be, for a time, considered by my daughter as omniscient, a virtual living Wikipedia. This can (and should) be true only for a while. All too soon, and with any luck at all, the scale tips. My daughter the culture maven, has come to know a great deal about a great deal. She is also genetically disposed to be a truly accomplished bullshitter, which makes her even more formidable. So now our word play is sometimes like a good game of chess with a respected opponent, but more often is simply an appreciative tasting of words like sips of good wines.

One night, when it was time,
we placed Air’s homemade
super kiss bookmark at
chapter’s end.

She climbed up to her bed
built over drawers and low closet.
A guardian angel looked down
from the low ceiling,
and glow-in-the-dark stars absorbed light
for their upcoming performance.

I nestled my face in her neck, breathed her scent,
nibbled a kiss good night.
Now she would announce
her last observations on the day.

My teacher says we have to be careful
about grownups. Lots of times that
even means grownups in our family.

Our eyes met.
The dark grew close.
Yes, Ariel, that’s right. But you can
trust me to care for you all the days
of your life.

Twenty years later,
Ariel can’t remember this exchange.

And that is how one night
she and I saved
our world for
good.

This poem, about a significant event that happened with my daughter twenty years ago, speaks for itself, I think. I’d been meaning to write it for a long time. Finally, along came an event that prompted me to do so. I was asked to read at the local library as part of an event (organized by my friend, Neil Baker) honoring the work of William Stafford. Pick a favorite Stafford poem and one of my own, was the request. “Tucking in Ariel” is my selection. Here (of my many favorites) is my Stafford selection:

With Kit, Age 7, At The Beach

We would climb the highest dune,
from there to gaze and come down:
the ocean was performing;
we contributed our climb.

Waves leapfrogged and came
straight out of the storm.
What should our gaze mean?
Kit waited for me to decide.

Standing on such a hill,
what would you tell your child?
That was an absolute vista.
Those waves raced far, and cold.

“How far could you swim, Daddy,
in such a storm?”
“As far as was needed,” I said,
and as I talked, I swam.

Damn. William Stafford. Robert Bly once said this is one of the greatest poems about parenting ever written. And Michael Meade wrote of it, “The child needs to hear an emotional truth spoken…how far does my father’s heart reach out into the world?…Her question pulls him into the wave-torn sea. In that moment he knows the answer in his heart: As far as was needed. The blessing is partly in the father’s capacity to hear the real question, partly in the heart-willingness of the answer.”

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.)

This place is more alive
than I’d known!

Years later, I can still feel the combination of being a watchful parent, while at the same time absorbing the sense of utter mystery present in childrens’ fantastical explorations of “good and evil.”