Happy Father's Day

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?

Great Grandfathers

John Walsh

Stephen Slade

Joe Rucker

Walter Davis

Walter Davis

Grandfathers

Orvin Davis

Fred Slade

Father

Fred Slade Jr.

 

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.