Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

Those Winter Sundays


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?

At a Friend’s Burial by Antonio Machado

They gave him earth one horrible afternoon
in the month of July, under the fiery sun.

One step from the open grave
there were roses with rotting petals
among sour smelling
red geraniums. The sky
pure and blue. A strong
dry breeze was blowing.

The two grave diggers
lowered the coffin,
hanging heavily from thick ropes
to the bottom of the grave . . .

And on resting it made a loud thud,
solemn in the silence.

The blow of a coffin on the earth
is something perfectly serious.

Heavy dirt clods broke
on the black box . . .

The air carried
white breath from the deep grave.

—And you, shadowless now, sleep and rest,
long peace to your bones . . .

Finally,
sleep a still and true sleep.