Sundays too my father got up early6 of 30. Happy National Poetry Month!
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?
Sunday, April 6, 2014
6 of 30: "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
For this particular Sunday, today's poem is "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden: