winter
Originally uploaded by brookejared.
Originally uploaded by brookejared.
Those Winter Sundays
by 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?
I have loved this poem for a long time. I am in the process of writing an essay about my experience as a nurse, mostly about how much I have struggled to love my job.I know this poem is about a father and a son, but the words have been on my m ind this week. Sometimes the work we do out of love is lonley and austere. As for the photo, it is not mine, but I liked it.
