Monday, May 19, 2025
D+173/118
1961 Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev makes his Paris stage debut with the Kirov Ballet
1962 "John Birch Society" single by Chad Mitchell Trio hit the pop charts
1983 36th Cannes Film Festival: "Narayama Bushiko" (The Ballad of Narayama ) directed by Japanese director Shohei Imamura, won the Palme d'Or
1992 Dan Quayle attacked Murphy Brown for being a single mother, a poor example of family values
In bed at 1:30, awake around 4:30, and up at 4:45. 42°, wind chill 31°, high of 50°
Prednisone, day 369; 1 mg., day 11/21; Kevzara, day 7/14; CGM, day 2/15; Trulicity, day 3.7. Prednisone at 4:50 a.m. Other meds at 6 a.m. Eye drops at 5 a.m., p.m., and p.m.
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?
I first encountered this poem in Garrison Keillor's anthology Good Poems. I suppose eead person has his own definition of what makes a poem good or not. Most of the poetry that I have read means nothing to me, or worse than nothing because it's an irritant, inpenetrable, unintelligible, dense as a brick. But some poems kick me in the stomach. Whitman's Come Up From the Fields, Father, Yeats's Vacillation, and this one by Robert Hayden This poem came to mind this morning because I thought of Geri's being so concerned that she leave me properly provisioned when she leaves Thursdy for her four day visit with her friends Kate Donovan and Tuzz, who will be flying in from Dublin. Her conscience won't be at ease unless she leaves me with the fixings for a proper evening meal for each day she is gone. She sees no humor in my joke that I can get along just fine on Graham crackers and peanut butter. I can be trusted to deal with my own breakfasts and lunches, but dinners are her bailiwick, and she needs to be sure that I am properly equipped, provisioned, and instructed before she leaves.
Mostly, however, this poem reminds me of my own father. this poem and another, When My Dead Father Called, by Robert Bly. Both poems trigger emotions in me that are too deep and tangled to express
When My Dead Father Called
Last night I dreamt my father called to us.
He was stuck somewhere. It took us
A long time to dress, I don't know why.
The night was snowy; there were long black roads.
Finally we reached the little town, Bellingham.
There he stood, by a streetlamp in cold wind,
Snow blowing along the sidewalk. I noticed
The uneven sort of shoes that men wore
In the early Forties. And overalls. He was smoking.
Why did it take us so long to get going? Perhaps
He left us somewhere once, or did I simply \
Forget he was alone in winter in some town?
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