The Importance of Living in the Present (Pub 5)

The Dance 1909 Henri Matisse

We know from the first line of  “My Father’s Song,” “Wanting to say things, I miss my father tonight,” (Ortiz 1), that the feelings felt by the speaker will be positive ones. In that line he conveys that he wants to tell us about his father. He continues the poem with memories of his physical being, and then precedes an experience he remembers with the line, “…the tremble of emotion
in something he has just said
to his son, his song,” (Ortiz 2-3). The word “song” in that line, as well as in the title, is a metaphor for his father’s nature. In that line he tells you that his father was emotional, while speaking to him, during the experience he is about to unfold in the poem. Many times before he has planted corn with his father in the fields, but on this one occasion his father points out how they have unearthed newborn mice while digging. His father picks them up to move them to safety, but before he does, he tells his son to touch them. This shows how his father wants him to experience the new life, respect it, and become sensitive to it, as he, himself is. The speaker uses the word “gently” to describe how his father holds them. He also uses the words “softness, tiny, and warm” in the poem. With the words he chooses, the poem becomes a soft song of emotional sweetness, his father’s song. He ends it with, “I remember the very softness
of cool and warm sand and tiny alive mice
and my father saying things,” (Ortiz 12-13). What his father is saying is in the body of the poem, the experience told, how precious life is. Unfortunately, the theme of relationship between father and son takes on a different tone in the poem “Those Winter Sundays.”

The speaker in this poem looks back to his younger days and realizes the sacrifices his father made, which weren’t acknowledged by him while he was young. He writes, “Sundays too my father got up early and put his cloths on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached with labor…” (Hayden 1-4), which tells the reader that even though his father worked a laborious job all week, he sacrificed his one day off. The line, “No one ever thanked him,” (Hayden 5) clearly indicates the tone of regret. With the lines, “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well,” (Hayden 10-12) the speaker gives himself blame for not speaking to him adequately, and appreciating him. The poem ends on a sad note with the line, “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (Hayden 13-14). The father and son relationship in this poem was not a good one and the acts of love shown by the father were of duty. Although, the speaker is looking back, and acknowledging his fathers love, it is too late for their relationship. The song “Cats and the Cradle” also carries the theme of missed opportunities between father and son.

          
 “Cats and the Cradle” is about a little boy growing up, and the father promising him that he will play with him, but that time never comes because of life’s responsibilities. The recurring chorus, “When you comin' home dad? I don't know when, but we'll get together then son. You know we'll have a good time then,” (Chapin 10-12), changes midway to  “When you comin' home son…” as the boy gets older and he starts to borrow the car, and no longer is waiting for his dad to come home. The line throughout the song "I'm gonna be like you dad. You know I'm gonna be like you," (6-7) is repeated until the end of the song when the father asks to see his grown son, and because of his son’s responsibilities he doesn’t have time and Harry Chapin sings, “He'd grown up just like me. My boy was just like me,” (44-45).

         
  The theme of missed important opportunities for fathers and sons, which can never be revisited, is shared in the poem “Those Winter Sundays,” and the song “Cats and the Cradle.” Although, the viewpoint in “Those Winter Sundays,” is from a son, and his regret of not appreciating his father, and in “Cats and the Cradle,” the viewpoint is from a father, and his regret of time not spent with his son, they still share the theme. These two pieces also share the theme of relationships between fathers and sons with “My Father’s Song,” which does not carry the tone of regret. These three poems remind me to take heed to the thought of living in the present, and to make sure I am not going to be looking back, regretting time not spent with, and appreciating important people in my life.