Another of my favorite poems
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback 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?
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback 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?
That's a good one! I hadn't read it before. Do you have others up somewhere?
Is there a Blogger "welcome wagon"? haha
Rebecca
I try to post my "Lit Bits" regularly. The only other poem I've posted to this point is one by Donald Hall:
http://jmiddlekauff.blogspot.com/2006/05/poem-of-week_04.html
Oh, and I forgot this one:
http://jmiddlekauff.blogspot.com/2007/05/lit-bit-2.html