Father's Day in Gaziantep

For William Stafford's Australian Crawl

“You should write more poems,” says my wife, encouragingly. I tell her another is coming. A poem gestates inside of me, as if I were a pregnant woman. Because I am ill equipped for natural birth, and because I was given English as a language; because the various western languages of my ancestors were lost through colonization or migration; because I am a mutt, I must cut out each poem from the ripened body of my imagination with a scalpel forged from the language of Shakespeare and Mark Twain.

In real life I am the father of a tall little girl, born into this world like Caesar, blonde and blue eyed, with the epicanthic folds of her Asiatic nomad ancestors. She can say “please” and “thank you” and can swear a little bit in English. She has a sense of irony already at four. Formidable at four years old—she will need to be strong, smart, quick witted, and good looking in this world full of trick mirrors. Her mother and I have given her two tongues, the first one Turkish. She will speak her own language. Insha'allah.

In the pool, I silently repeat the names of God, in Arabic probably mispronounced in my mind. I swim laps because I live in a dry land with too good a cuisine, and my belly keeps me afloat. Sometimes I whisper “Subhanallah,” and take a breath, and move my arms and legs like an enormous pale frog. The feel of the water and the smell of the chlorinated water reminds me of pools I remember from the late 1970s. My daughter is learning to swim—I can remember the magic of water in childhood. I am forty eight and I am still swimming through magic water.

I tried sitting meditation years ago, but couldn’t empty my mind. I hike, or like today, I swim, or sometimes vacuum the rugs, or shoot hoops on summer nights under park lights, but constantly there are words and images, like a confused mosaic, on the walls of my thoughts.

I can say please and thank you and swear a little bit in Spanish and a lot in English. I am learning to swim in a body that is aging. I am still learning to speak a language of my own. Virility and articulation have not abandoned me yet. Subhanallah.