those winter wednesdays

this morning we awoke to snowy rooftops across brooklyn. in the distance, the church with the two tall towers peaks in white. i remember passing through dreams and thinking of the snow and my father. in the early morning, i went for some water and looked outside to see dusty trees. birds sleeping.

i am reminded of Hayden's poem, Those Winter Sundays. this poem brings a lot on me, constantly reminding me of my father and his absense during most mornings. he usually worked the night shift and would arrive home as we were eating breakfast. usually, he'd join us, making his black tea and eating toast with eggs. those foggy mornings, sketched quietly in the backs of my brain, are always there.

my father is not dead, though he lingers on the edge.

Those Winter Sundays


Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback 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

***
snow haiku
pale dusty lines the old blue
teeth shed some luz homes
i once went on back to you

-m.