Those Winter Sundays

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

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'd 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?