Poem of the Week

This is currently my favorite poem. Robert Hayden was a poet of the post-Harlem Renaissance period. His parents, Ruth and Asa Sheffey, were unable to take care of him and separated soon after his birth. He was taken in by Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden but maintained a relationship with his mother, who was a constant disappointment to him. The Haydens had a rather tempestuous relationship resulting in fights and abuse. Robert's traumatic childhood had a profound influence on his life and his work. Despite these difficulties, this poem pays tribute to the man who raised him.

Those Winter Sundays

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?

-Robert Hayden, 1962