The Neglected Father

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?

Hayden has crafted a poem that many people could easily relate to. This is a poem with great emotional depth and sadness. It is filled with regret and dismay and brings a certain sorrow to the reader. Hayden manages to fill these three stanzas with a great amount of detail and hidden messages that pull at the heartstrings of any reader. The message of the poem seems to be about more than just a father-son bond, but of the established bonds between families and the understanding of love and what it means to love someone and show them that. 

In the first stanza, Hayden prefaces the poem's purpose and message by taking about his father and how he always woke up early on Sunday mornings to split wood and keep the house warm for his wife and children. He emphasizes the "blueback cold" that his father went outside in and his "cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday" to show how dedicated his father was to keeping the house warm. Hayden finishes the first stanza by stating, "no one ever thanked him," implying that his father worked outside in the cold with soar, aching hands without being asked or told to; he did it because he loved his family even if they didn't express gratitude towards him for his actions. 

In the next stanza, Hayden writes about what he remembers waking up to in the mornings when his father was outside handling the wood and bringing it inside. He states that he could "hear the cold splintering, breaking," providing detailed imagery and also connecting back to the splintering and breaking of wood to keep the house warm. When stating that he could hear the cold, the reader may begin to picture the creaking of an old house in the cold and the gust of cold air that enters into a home when the door opens. You could also hear the crackling of a fire in the center of the house keeping the rooms and their inhabitants warm. Hayden continues and builds on the passivity of the father by stating that when the house was finally warm, he would call to his children to wake them up. However, he closes this stanza by stating that once he would get out of bed, he feared the "chronic angers of that house," implying that it wasn't always a happy environment and his father was not happy about never being appreciated. 

The final stanza takes a different turn and brings a finalization to the poem. He starts by stating that he spoke indifferently to his father in an attempt to not upset him when he would go downstairs on those frigid Sunday mornings. However, he continues by stating the additional things his father did for him, such as "driv[ing]out the cold and polish[ing] [his] good shoes," that he never showed appreciation for and closes this final stanza and poem all together with a powerful question. It is clear that Hayden regrets taking his father for granted all of his life and that he didn't show love or gratitude towards him. He seems to have come to the realization of just how kind and loving his father was towards him only after his father actually died. 

This poem seems to be about more than just regretting not showing gratitude and affection to one's father before it was too late. With the final two lines in this poem being a question about understanding love and what it truly means, this poem seems more about the understanding and acting out of love towards others. Hayden is expressing his lack of understanding of love and how when he did finally understand its importance, it was too late to show his father love.