June 2026: The Splinter
Sons and Fathers
Greetings! Our poems this month, by Rumi and Li-Young Lee, form a tiny opening into vast possibilities for re-experiencing our actual fathers – and also “the father” who inhabits our inner world with a life of his own. Hope to see you there!
Note: This will be our last Poetry Cave for the season. We’ll resume in the autumn.
See the poems below…
And thank you for your contributions @ “Friends and Family” via Spodry PayPal
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Who is my father in this world, in this house, at the spirit’s base?
-Wallace Stevens-
The Core of Masculinity –Rumi
The core of masculinity does not derive from being male,
nor friendliness from those who console.
Your old grandmother says,
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to school.
You look a little pale.”
Run when you hear that.
A father’s stern slaps are better.
Your bodily soul wants comforting.
The severe father wants spiritual clarity.
He scolds but eventually
leads you into the open.
Pray for a tough instructor
to hear and act and stay within you.
We have been accumulating solace.
Make us afraid of how we were.
The Gift –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,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
After Words
...Each one returning to the house of the father must go through the door of uncertainty; who can foresee what knocking on the iron gate will call up? Once again will he be unreachable, not really home – or waiting, willing to sweat out the truths? …This time, will my own anger and resentment diminish, and I’ll find him in a room making fires, ‘with cracked hands that ached from labor in weekday weather…’ – find him ‘steering through the vicious seas of those bitter times…’ – find him attending some mystery I didn’t know, didn’t guess at; find him decently attending funerals; find him among the race of fathers: earth and air and sea.’
–Michael J. Mead, THE RAG & BONE SHOP OF THE HEART
Thank you for another season of Poetry Cave! Click here to review the ground we’ve covered since last autumn.
Thank you for your donations and for the gift of your soulful presences, without which little would happen. May we live in Poignancy.
Since last Saturday’s gathering, men have shared on the Community Share page here. If you still wish to share something, I can easily add more.
We’ll resume next autumn. Peace to all fathers and sons! Steve
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Some of each life is lived in italics…
-William Stafford-
“Living in the Spirit”
Thank you for your contributions @ “Friends and Family” via Spodry PayPal