Father to Son

1 I do not understand this child

Though we have lived together now
In the same house for years. I know
Nothing of him, so try to build
Up a relationship from how
He was when small.

Ques
a) What does father reveal?
b) What efforts does he make to be able to understand him?
c) What is the speaker’s intention here?

Ans
a) The father reveals his inability in understanding his son.
b) He tries to recollect his childhood and recalls how he behaved as a child.
c) The speaker’s intention is here to build up relationship with his son.

2 Yet have I killed

The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
We speak like strangers, there’s no sign
Of understanding in the air.
The child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I can’t share.

Ques
a) What does the speaker mean by ‘Seed’?
b) Why do you think they speak and behave like strangers?
c) Why can’t I share what he loves?

Ans
a) ‘Seed’ means his own efforts to groom the boy.
b) Lack of understanding , cold indifference and communication gap make them speak like strangers.
c) Father and son face lack of harmony and compatibility . So father can’t appreciate what he loves or
likes.

3 Silence surrounds us. I would have

Him prodigal, returning to
His father’s house, the home he knew,
Rather than see him make and move
His world. I would forgive him too,
Shaping from sorrow a new love.

Ques
a) What sort of silence is being referred here?
b) What do you mean by ‘the prodigal son’?
c) What two choices does the father have?

Ans
a) Silence, here stands for harsh coldness and indifference that exist between father and son.
b) The poet has used the word ’prodigal’ for the son who wasteful of one’s means.
c) Either the son can severe all links with the father to shift into his own world or reunion with him.

4 Father and son, we both must live

On the same globe and the same land,
He speaks: I can’t understand
Myself, why anger grows from grief.
We each put out an empty hand,
Longing for something to forgive.

Ques
a) What emotions does the father feel?
b) Explain: ‘we each put out an empty hand’.
c) What do they yearn for?

Ans
a) His grief at the son distancing makes him angry.
b) They try to understand each other but in vain.
c) They yearn to forgive and forget the past and start afresh.