Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on 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 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?

                                                            Robert Hayden

Surely one of the most touching and astute poems ever written about a difficult family situation. The last two lines are perfection itself.

Photo courtesy Flickruser Michael Hodge