Happy Fathers Day!
Here are some of the fathers in my family.
Those Winter Sundays
As I celebrate these lovely men, I don't think it diminishes their achievements to remember that the opportunities they enjoyed were not open to all fathers.
I think about this poem by African-American poet
Robert Hayden
1913-1980
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?
I have always appreciated that Robert Hayden poem. Thank you. I had the privilege of meeting him at Oberlin in the early 60's where he read some of his work and talked with the students. He was every bit as lovely and erudite as his poetry.
ReplyDeleteHow lucky you are to have met him. I"m glad to know how nice he was.
Delete