For children, everything is monstrous and terrifying, and a mere scratch could feel like a battle wound. Therefore, the wisdom of parents is pivotal. In the Li Young Lee poem The Gift, the speaker recalls a childhood experience where his father’s gentleness and soothing voice alter a frightful circumstance to a moment of love. Through this recollection, the speaker realizes his father’s wisdom and manner were necessary for his transition to adulthood, suggesting that the bond between parent and child is imperative for their development of head and heart. The poem begins with an idea: the innocence of adolescence is something of magnificence. As a man pulls the splinter out of his wife’s hand, he remembers his father doing the same come back to him. To divert his attention from the splinter, his father told him a story. The boy, lost in the story, was unaware that the “iron silver [he] thought [he’d] die from” (Line 5) was out before the story ended. Children over exaggerate, but through the eyes of a child, this was the end. This hyperbole, magnifying he child’s innocence, emphasizes the father’s difference from the boy. This moment of ignorance separates the child from the adult and illuminates the point which every human being must be at. Rather than look at his hand,…show more content… His father, however, had wisdom and reassurance, and knew exactly what measures to take. His father had a voice like “a well of dark water, a prayer.”