For the first time in several years, we’ve been waking up to sub-zero temperatures. It’s the kind of cold that can’t really be measured by windchill factors. Biting and mean, it feels more like some kind of outsized mythic creature– the Abominable Snowman, perhaps – marauding across the landscape, freezing locks and playing havoc with your tire pressure sensor. It’s the kind of cold that can only be compared to the deep, snow-bound winters of childhood when, insisting on wearing your thin Christmas mittens to a sledding party, you walked home sobbing because you’d lost all feeling in your fingers.
In this poem about his childhood, the 20th-Century American poet Robert Hayden calls the predawn cold “blueblack,” which seems exactly right – as is everything else in these 14 beautiful lines of love and regret.
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?
Lovely poem, new to me.
Winter provides challenges, but I would not wish to live without it (in the minority likely .)
We’re a minority of two then, Cheryl!
This brought tears
I know — I remember my father talking about the old coal furnace they had. I think it’s still there!
Your writing and selection of poetry is very meaningful. I like winter. I like snow. Snow covers the dry fields and the browns of trees and grasses In VA mts we are having -1 degrees some mornings. Feels good be cause we need deep cold to kill the harmful bugs. My nephew took me to Iceland Jan 2024. We celebrated the-new year, Christmas and Epiphany with their fireworks and huge bonfires. This Jan we have laughed that our temperatures are colder than Iceland was. So all the warm clothing purchased to wear in Iceland is serving well. We keep our bedrooms cold. So the poem has meanings for me in very different ways from the young man. May you be as warm as you need.
Thank you for writing, Elaine. Glad to hear your Iceland clothing is keeping you warm!
This poem always makes me cry. I taught it many, many times, and my classroom would suddenly grow hushed as my students pondered why their teacher, with tears running down her face, could barely speak. Thanks for the memories! And, yes, “blueblack” is perfect.
There’s nothing better than sharing a poem you love. This has been a favorite of mine for years, too. Another blueblack morning!
Wow! What an amazing poem. Incredible how much you can say with so few words.
Yes — and that repetition at the end is stunning.