Those Winter Sundays

 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?

Robert Hayden

Reflections

“The best thing  for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. 

That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies,

 you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, 

you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. 

There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. 

That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, 

and never dream of regretting.” 

 

- Τ.Η. White, The Once and Future King