Men (for Father's Day, June 16)


Men who believe women.
Men who care for women in pain.
Men who praise women when
their bodies grow old.
Men who listen to women even when
they repeat themselves.
Men who hear women even when
they do not speak.
Men who hug the whole body,
the whole radiance of a women
with their own radiance,
Rahman i'Raheem.
Men who father daughters and sons.
Men who father mothers.
Men who linger by forest ponds
and gaze into green stillness,
speaking to the great mother.
Men who travel deep into the wilderness
not to hunt or kill,
not to climb the highest peak,
but just to be there.
Men who know valleys,
observing the etiquette of mist,
the customs of cedar and willow.
Men who understand
that the fire in their belly
is the Goddess.


Photo: at the Jersey shore with my wife and daughters, 1988.

No comments: