Sundays too my father got up early <br />And put his clothes on in the blueback cold, <br />then with cracked hands that ached <br />from labor in the weekday weather made <br />banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. <br /> <br />I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. <br />When the rooms were warm, he'd call, <br />and slowly I would rise and dress, <br />fearing the chronic angers of that house, <br /> <br />Speaking indifferently to him, <br />who had driven out the cold <br />and polished my good shoes as well. <br />What did I know, what did I know <br />of love's austere and lonely offices?<br /><br />Robert Hayden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/those-winter-sundays/
