Father’s Day Early, 2008: When Fathers Row Into The Storm

Fathers, as well as brothers, grandfathers, uncles, best friends, neighbor guy down the road, strangers out of nowhere… all can count as good, sometimes nearly beatific fathers sometimes.

Perhaps because no man, no woman, can fit the perfection of the archetypal father or mother, perhaps because there are sometimes too many errors and omissions in parenting without maliciously meaning to, perhaps because some one didn’t see, couldn’t see, because some one ignored or betrayed or dismissed or turned their backs at a time so critical…

Perhaps that is why when the fathers and the brothers, when the uncles and the anyman come for us when we’re lost, no matter what else, no matter what happened in the decades before or the days afterward … they wear for the rest of their lives the crown of heroic being, heroic man.

For myself, I had a father, who as they say, “drank to much,” and you can read all you know about bad times and struggle, shame and redemption written between the life-lines there.

And yet, there was this…. there is still this… there will always be this….

BAPTISM:
THE GOOD FATHERS

Our bodies painted red by the dawn sky,
our hair stuck up in cockscombs from sleeping,
we two little children snuck down to the rowboats.
We wobbled across the lake toward the lily ponds
to gather blooms for our mothers.
What a big boy! What a big girl!
they all would exclaim upon our return.

We tugged up the white blush flowers with roots so long,
till the bottom of our boat was filled to the bow.
As we turned toward home the rains began.
Then fog threw back its hood and roared; and we rowed.
The waves turned black; and we rowed.
We lost first one oar and then the other; and we cried out.
Our thin night clothes stamped with cowboys and stars
went transparent like tattoos all over our pale blue bodies,
and we cried out, Mother! Father! God! Help us!

Death slid its hands down over our eyes…
But the wall of fog was suddenly pierced
by a battered wooden rowboat leaping and bucking,
the tiny boat filled with four phantoms,
rowing and rowing like madmen,
their faces distorted by rain and rage, eight oars
slugging the roiling waters over and over;
and they were calling out our names, bellowing
over the storm, Hold on! Hold on! We are coming for you!

Vessel crashed into vessel, and big wet hands flailed
till two gigantic wraiths of the lake rolled into our boat.
They hooked oars into iron stocks, tethered the boats,
and we crouched beneath the phantom rowers’ arms
as they rowed, cursing words we did not know,
as they rowed through the heavy drapes of rain and noise,
and with every hit of swash, lilies spewed overboard,
floating and drowning in the spume behind us.

And when at last our vessels ran into the soft slough,
and the rain went sideways,
the gray-faced phantoms grabbed us up, snagging
long ropey roots and green-heart leaves
and dangling white lilies as well.
With us in arms they strove up the howling hill,
holding us hard against their bony breasts,
shielding our faces with their hands.
And then finally, in the sudden heat from the open door
they bowed their heads like horses, offering us
held out like armfuls of heavy wild bouquets
—two trembling children covered with broken flowers—
delivered into the arms of weeping women.

When I dream of that time so long ago, though in years
intervening, there would be at least one long year
of silence, one of forgetfulness, and
one of forgiveness, even so—in that one despond
of fog and rain and waves, these flares remain lit—
–the men
who rowed the boat,
–the men
who climbed the hill,
–the men
who carried us toward home. . .
–the uncles, the brothers, the fathers
who despite their imperfections,
did not forsake The Heart of God—
that is, a child stranded in the storm—

–these souls, all of them, now anointed forever
with waters from the tempests they braved,
–these souls, all of them, now anointed forever
by the fragrance of wild lilies
they have, with great effort,
carried up from the dark. . .

_____________
CODA
Tomorrow on TMV, another installment for Father’s Day Early: On being orphaned by the death of the Father

“Baptism: The Good Fathers” ©1970, 2008, C.P. Estés, All Rights Reserved. Excerpted from mss, La Pasionaria: Collected Poetry of CPE.