familial

a geographically distant but increasingly dear friend of mine recently got to discussing families, and the way we do and don't relate to parents, regardless of how close we are. it put me in the mind of something robert hayden wrote years ago, and something that for anyone who stumbles on these words is here to read now. that means you.

it just kind of teems with with all the frustration, longing and
quiet admiration realized years later.

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?