Journal about Those Winter Sundays

ThoseWinterSundaysbyRobertHayden_PoetryFoundation.pdf

Those Winter Sundays

B Y R O B E R T H AY D E N

Reprinted with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Source: Collected Poems of Robert Hayden (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1985)

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,

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,

driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s and lonely offices?

breaking.

When

who had

austere

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