The Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up
early
And put his clothes on in the
blue-black 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?
