ROBERT HAYDEN (1913-1980), Those Winter Sundays

ROBERT HAYDEN 

(1913-1980),

 Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blue-black 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 anger 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?

Even from a single reading, we see that the speaker of "Those Winter Sundays," now an adult, is remembering how his father used to get up on cold Sunday morning and light the fires that would warm the house for his sleeping family. We sense that he regrets how unappreciative of his father he was a child. We may wonder what prompts these memories and feelings. Our initial reading may also call up memories of our own. This kind of reading in the context of our experience is important for our full response to the pleasure poetry offers.