Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fathers

"Parenthood chooses you. And you open your eyes, look at what you've got, say "Oh, my gosh," and recognize that of all the balls there ever were, this is the one you should not drop. It's not a question of choice.” 

― Marisa de los Santos, Love Walked In

“America used to live by the motto "Father Knows Best."
Now we're lucky if "Father Knows He Has Children."
We've become a nation of sperm donors and baby daddies.”
                                                   ― Stephen Colbert, I Am America

“We were kids without fathers, so we found our fathers  on wax 

and on the streets and in history, and in a way, that was a gift. 

We got to pick and choose the ancestors who would inspire 

the world we were going to make for ourselves.” 
― Jay-Z, Decoded

father with child on lake

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ 

Fathers

Many nations have a holiday to celebrate fathers and fatherhood and fathering and fathers' influence on society.  In the USA, it is the third Sunday in June.  All species have fathers, too, though the roles they play out are not like human roles.  Or are they?

During last week's prompt by Sumana on "time," a few poems reminded me of personifications like "Father Time" and designations like "The Father of Industry"  and "The Father of Off Off Broadway." Are these like human parent-child roles?  

Your Challenge: "Father" a new poem. Let your motif address some aspect of fatherhood.

A Father's Day Tale by Juan Felipe Herrera, the new USA Poet Laureate

More inspiration:  

The Gift

BY LI-YOUNG LEE

To pull the metal splinter from my palm

my father recited a story in a low voice.

I watched his lovely face and not the blade.

Before the story ended, he'd removed

the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

I can't remember the tale,

but hear his voice still, a well

of dark water, a prayer.

And I recall his hands,

two measures of tenderness

he laid against my face,

the flames of discipline

he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon

you would have thought you saw a man

planting something in a boy’s palm . . . . 

              (Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation)          

Excerpted from The Father of My Country

BY DIANE WAKOSKI

. . . . 

If George Washington

had not

been the Father

of my Country

it is doubtful that I would ever have

found

a father. Father in my mouth, on my lips, in my

tongue, out of all my womanly fire,

Father I have left in my steel filing cabinet as a name on my birth   

certificate, Father I have left in the teeth pulled out at   

dentists’ offices and thrown into their garbage cans,

Father living in my wide cheekbones and short feet,

Father in my Polish tantrums and my American speech, Father, not a

holy name, not a name I cherish but the name I bear, the name   

that makes me one of a kind in any phone book because   

you changed it, and nobody

but us

has it,

Father who makes me dream in the dead of night of the falling cherry

blossoms, Father who makes me know all men will leave me   

if I love them . . . . 

          (Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

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and visit others in the spirit of the community.

Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be Entering Summer or Winter  (depending on where you are).

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