
Those Winter Sundays
--Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put on his clothes in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake up and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house.
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
3 comments:
OMG -- I'm shattered.
peri
I don't know how many times I've read and taught that poem over the years. Like you, it always reminds me of Daddy. Thanks for sharing.
Love,
Eileen
Thank you for leaving that comment! I can't make it through that poem in my class. I have the students take over!
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