Those Winter Sundays
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 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?

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