Read the poem.
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?
Part of the appeal of "Those Winter Sundays" is that
readers can draw their own conclusions about the
speaker and his father because things are left
uncertain.
Which line from the poem leaves readers wondering
why there is tension in the speaker's childhood
home?
"fearing the chronic angers of that house,"
"Sundays too my father got up early
"then with cracked hands that ached"
"I'd wake and hear the cold splintering.
breaking."