Those Winter Sundays (1/5)

Those Winter Sundays 
by Robert Hayden

Ouch- he was left out in the cold, hung out to dry, thrown under the bus, and any other cliches possible that reach the meaning that this poor father worked hard to please his children but was not seemingly ever verbally thanked. I find it interesting actually that even after all of the preparation the father does to heat the home and to make them feel comfortable before stepping out of bed, they still think of the house in terms of its supposed, "chronic anger" (Hayden, 781). It seems to be that the father has put a great deal of work into making his children feel like the first step they're going to take that day is one of comfort, that the first thing they wake up to is the crackling of a warm fire, and it seems awfully crude that they fear this house that he has woken up early (and on a Sunday, nonetheless) to break the cruel entrance back into the cold world from their warm dreamstate. Also, at the end of the poem, the author point out a greater reality. "Love's austere and lonely offices" are rather accurate statements of what love really is (Hayden, 782). Loving someone, most of the time, implies that one would care for the other to the extent that they themselves would wake up on a cold early morning, all alone, to bear the worst for the other. It's actually quite sad though, that sometimes loneliness comes out of even our best intentions.