Central Idea and Summary

The central idea of the poem is the emotional distance between a father and his son, and the sorrow this distance causes. Although they have lived together for years, they have become like strangers who cannot communicate. The father admits his own share of the failure and, in the end, both long for a reconciliation that neither seems able to begin.

The father begins by confessing that he does not understand his child, even though they have lived under one roof for many years. He tries to rebuild the bond by recalling the boy as he was when small, but the past cannot be recovered. He wonders whether he is to blame — whether he has 'killed the seed' he planted, or whether the son has simply grown into a world of his own that the father cannot enter. …