"Those Winter Sundays" Reflection

The poem "Those Winter Sundays" is written of Hayden looking back at his childhood in the present time. The first stanza Hayden uses both "blueblack cold" which depicts the cold and dark setting, until later in the stanza when his father "made banked fires blaze," which contrasts the blueblack cold. This highlights the main purpose of the poem, to appreciate his fathers love for him as his father got up early in the morning and "[drove] out the cold." The most powerful part of the poem comes at the end, where he asks "what did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices." The repetition of "what did I know" makes the emphasis on him not understanding his fathers love as a youth as he was in fear of the "chronic angers of that house." The use of the phrase "love's austere and lonely offices" is very interesting because it observes love (the subject) as bitter and lonely unlike most other depictions of love that are happy and have a positive tone. He looks at the other side of love, the selfless love of a parent that receives no appreciation or recognition until their child becomes old enough (or have a child themselves) to understand their parents sacrifice. I also like how the poet mentions "the chronic angers of that house" because it means that not all was perfect and this was not the perfect father. There were problems, like all houses, yet he develops a great deal of respect for his father and his "cracked hands" from tough manual labor to provide for his family.