PR 7: Those Winter Sundays

This poem speaks to those people whom have had a person in their life that never received the gratitude that they deserved. Robert Hayden pays tribute to his father and the work he did to keep his family afloat. The author begins by talking about how his father would wake before everyone on winter mornings and make sure that the furnace was refilled with coal to keep the family warm. His father did many things, both manual labor and emotionally, to make sure his family was well. The family was put first and Robert Hayden never realized this as a child. The other aspect of the poem deals with the relationship between Hayden and his father. It was a form of “tough love” and Hayden as a child could not realize that this was the only way his father knew to show he cared.

The admiration that Hayden has for his father has come later than it should have, and he realizes this. Hayden wishes that as a child he could have understood the actions of his father, but now he not only accepts them he also appreciates them. I think that is true in many families. We all think that we are being treated unfairly as children, but as we mature we begin to realize that all of that “tough love” actually benefited us the most. It is a shame; however, that we can’t realize this sooner.