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
Bank 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?

By Robert Hayden