Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden

Lent, Day 35

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?

This is one of the few poems in this book that I knew before - struck me as almost unbearably poignant when I first met it. I am so grateful my children have a father like this - almost always he rises first - no fires to bank in most of our life together, but always a cup of tea to take to us all in bed.

And probably like his father before him - whose dressing gown he wears here - a man I never met, but who was also faithful and self-sacrificing.

During Holy Week we remember another father like this - and maybe also realise how little we understand or appreciate love's austere and lonely offices that he went through on our behalf - and how indifferently we speak to him still...

Good morning taking my brother-in-law on the train to see how changed Birmingham is from 30+ years ago - the sunshine made it even better. Shame my sister stayed ill in bed. And now they have gone, leaving me feeling quite bereft.