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?

************************************
by Robert Hayden

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/robert_hayden/poems/4406

loneliness

then i asked Almustafa, "speak about loneliness"
with a trembling voice he replied:
loneliness is when you become the only question to many answers,
the answers keep changing and the question remains the same.