Waking up in our barely heated dark apartment, I've been thinking lately of this poem, by Robert Hayden, that I first read while in college. It's about winter, and poverty, and fathers, and sons. And for blessings we receive whether we know them or not, and perspective upon them.
It's always been one of my favorites, partly because even though it's so simple, the meaning changes for me each time I read it.
Those Winter Sundays
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?
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