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

In his poem “Those Winter Sundays”, Robert Hayden examines the ever-changing relationship between parent and child, and the increased understanding of sacrifice that too often only arrives with age.   It is a recount of Hayden’s childhood Sunday mornings, in which his father would rise before the rest of the family to warm the house with a fire. 

Hayden chooses to write the poem entirely in the past tense, indicating that it is a memory of his, but makes a point to include visceral imagery.   Although the events take place when he is a young child, Hayden still remembers his father’s “cracked hands” in the “blueblack cold”, and the way he awoke to their fire “splintering, breaking”.  This imagery, combined with Hayden’s first-person perspective, causes the poem to read quite narratively.  Although it is an early memory for Hayden, it is not clouded by the passing of time or warmed by the glow of nostalgia – rather, it has been sharpened by regret.   The imagery present throughout the poem, even without the other elements Hayden uses to establish tone, demonstrates the frequency with which Hayden has reflected upon his relationship with his father.   This removes the distance that normally exists between storyteller and audience, increasing the poem’s emotional impact.

Hayden’s intentionally cold and distant diction demonstrates the strained relationship that he has with his father – a relationship his Father attempts to warm with his labor of love.  The repeated use of the word “cold”, along with “blueblack”, “cracked”, and “splintering” captures the energy of the house beautifully.  It is as cold and lifeless as the relationship between Hayden and his father, seemingly devoid of passion and love.   When examining their father-son relationship through this lens, his father’s fires take on significant symbolic meaning.   While Hayden’s father may seem gruff and cold, his efforts each morning are a labor of love.  Although he does not express his feelings through words (Hayden chooses to omit any dialogue from the poem), Hayden’s father lights a fire each morning in an attempt to warm the house as well as melt the icy relationship that he has with his son.  Unfortunately for him, at the time these efforts were in vain, as Hayden recalls the “indifferent” manner in which he would speak to his father each morning.   

Hayden subtly demonstrates his own emotional growth through his syntactical choices.  The first of these choices come in only the second word of the poem, as Hayden writes that “Sundays too my father got up early”.  The inclusion of the word “too” is easily ignored at first glance, but it reveals to the reader that Hayden’s father awoke every morning, even Sundays (a day of rest) to warm the house for his family.  It would be understandable for the reader to skip over this detail, just as Hayden as a child was ignorant of his Father’s continued sacrifice for the family.  Hayden also makes interesting use of sentence structure at the end of the first stanza.  He switches from narration to reflection, ending the stanza with the phrase “No one ever thanked him”.  This shift in writing indicates Hayden drawing back from his storytelling, and functions almost as a realization that the reader experiences alongside the author.   Hayden chooses to conclude the final stanza with repetition and a question.  This both highlights the poem’s introspective nature, as well as imploring the reader to ask themselves about parental love.  The repetition of “What did I know” strikes the reader as being reflective, not an outward question but rather one that Hayden is asking of himself.  He understands that at the time he did not appreciate his father’s sacrifice, and is forcing himself to reckon with the fact that he did not demonstrate thankfulness when it was due.  By separating the final line from this introspective questioning, removing the first-person “I”, and scaling to a much larger question of love, Hayden asks the audience to reflect on whether or not they returned the sacrifice and love they received from their parents.  

Through his use of past tense, cold diction, the metaphor of the fire, and clever syntactical choices, Hayden urges the audience to appreciate the love they are gifted with, no matter what form it may come in.