Little Father by Li-Young Lee

[ravengirl.livejournal.com]

It's the second anniversary of my father's death and I wanted to share a Li-Young Lee poem with you all. Then I realized that I found that poem in these very pages as my dad lay terminally ill. So this is a small "thank you" to this community that I've treasured for years. To those of you out there posting your favorite poems and opening up new worlds to me, thank you. This community touches my life in very real ways.


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.

Comments

[volcanoandice.livejournal.com]

This is amazing, thank you so much for sharing it.

[primless.livejournal.com]

the third anniversary of my father's death was yesterday. thanks for this--i appreciate it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_watchtower_/]

It's been a long time since words so beautiful made me cry...thank you.

[teithiwr.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's amazing.

[iatrogenicmyth.livejournal.com]

I cried when I read this - not only the poem, but the acknowledgment that words can heal even when they remind us of a deeper hurt.

My dad died on August 31, 2010 of liver cancer. I posted a poem either here or in "theysaid" that I'd read in an anthology of poems called "On Grieving." It was in hardcover when I bought it in September and some of the pages have been so thoroughly soaked with tears you might think I dropped it in the bathtub accidentally.

Poetry was my refuge while he was dying and I was taking care of him for 8 months - mostly war poetry, to get my mind of off personal tragedies. It's sad that I can no longer read those poems because there was a war being raged within my dad's own body, and I never considered myself a selfish person but I'd trade another country war with countless lives lost only to have the one person I loved more than anyone have "won the war" against cancer.

[moonglows.livejournal.com]

I love this poem so much. It was so comforting for me to read after my boyfriend died in 2006. I think it is an appropriate poem in the face of anyone's passing.

Also, my heart goes out to you who have lost your fathers. I have no idea how I will cope when my own father dies. He is my best friend and he has gotten me through so much, especially since my mother died in 2004.

[anomalous-data.livejournal.com]

This brought me to tears. Thank you.