(Technically Not) My Poem

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback 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?

Analysis:
The poem, "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden compares warming a house on a cold winter day to unconditional love. It describes a father working hard for his child all week and then getting up early on Sunday to warm the house so that his kid would be comfortable. But even after all the father does, the kid still doesn't understand the love that the father is trying to convey to him. At the end of the poem, the kid is ungrateful because he doesn't understand how much his father has sacrificed and given to his kid. The kid doesn't understand the kind of unfailing love that his father has for him.

I really liked this poem because the connotation of the word choice was very colorful and gave me many clear images. For instance, when Hayden describes the cold leaving the house as he's waking up, "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking," (6). I imagined when you pour a glass of water and then add ice, and it makes a splintering sound. Also, when the father is getting up early to warm the house, the description of the cold made it even more real to me, "...put his clothes on in the blueback cold," (2). When I read this line I thought of the color blue-- it's just a cold color. In the winter, especially at night when the temperature drops dramatically (and especially in Minnesota), the snow, the icey streets, frozen fingers and toes, chapped lips; they're all shades of blue. Hayden's description of the cold using "blueback" intensified the word "cold" even more for me. I've also just been really excited for snow and the Holidays, and reading this poem made me think of walks in the snow, laying cozy next to the fire and watching the snow fall outside, I LOVE THE SNOW!!! This poem made the cold feel really real to me, not that it's not cold outside here in Minnesota, but I felt like it was snowing in this poem. There weren't any references to it, but it just felt like it.