Does My Father Cry? by Nazaret Ranea

Does My Father Cry?

Does my father cry
in the deep night,
when the house is silent
and he stretches out in bed,
unsure if the creaking
comes from the mattress
or from himself?

Does he cry
leaning on the railing
as the sky breaks awake,
the light spilling into the street,
and he’s still so tired?

Does my father cry
with the slow coming sunrise,
as he opens the door,
steps out, alone,
to the middle of the road?

Does he cry
in the morning glow,
watching shadows shift –
and there he is,
tired, tired, tired,
among all living things?

NAZARET RANEA

…………………………………………………

Nazaret Ranea is a Spanish poet living in Scotland who has, she says, ‘a taste for saying complicated things in a way that feels simple, natural and yet powerful’ – as this delicate, lovely poem demonstrates. It is a poem that depicts a young woman’s curiosity about the inner life of men; specifically, the inner life of a traditionally masculine father whose life is marked, and perhaps consumed, by manual labour.

‘Does my father cry?’ she asks repeatedly, but not rhetorically – even if the answer in each of the situations described is almost certainly ‘No’. For there is an unspoken word here: ‘inside’. Does he cry inside? Does he have an inner life that trembles with the same sensitivity to nature and the passing moment that his daughter experiences? Is there common emotional and spiritual ground between them, beyond familial ties?

The poem feels personal, even raw, but there are literary antecedents informing Ranea’s style. The repetitive near-litany can be found in such Spanish-language poets as Federico García Lorca and, especially, the great Peruvian poet, César Vallejo, both of whom Ranea cites as early influences. It is a poem that brings other poems about fathers to mind – less so Sylvia Plath’s bitterly angry ‘Daddy’ than, say, Robert Hayden’s ‘Those Winter Sundays’, in which the poet-son comes belatedly to realise and appreciate the self-sacrificing love of a father whose life similarly revolved around hard work.

Ranea is a rising star in Scotland’s poetry scene. Named one of the Next Generation Young Makars in 2023, her first poetry book, Nettles, appeared two years later, published by the excellent Drunk Muse Press. But no verbal pyrotechnics are at work here; rather, a humble submission to everyday reality and ‘ordinary’ feeling.

There is a tension of opposites in the poem: between father and daughter; between the fruits (and fruitlessness) of physical labour and those of creative expression; between human exhaustion and the inexhaustibility of the natural world. And there is no resolution except in the poem itself, as insight and inspired gift. 

David Cameron

You can learn more about Nazaret Ranea and her writing here.