Winter Weekdays
a poem inspired by Robert Hayden's poem, "Winter Sundays"
Article voiceover
On winter weekday mornings, my father woke early, walked outside into the freeze, and defrosted my iced-over car so that I wouldn't have to idle in the cold before I drove twenty-two miles to high school. He'd also leave me a travel mug filled with black coffee. I doubt that I thanked my father enough for that kindness. I failed to see that my father's early morning routine was a love song.
Read Robert Hayden’s poem here.
Father’s often say ‘I love you’ without SAYING I love you. I think of my dad, walking to my first job to meet me with an umbrella on a stormy night. I wish I was the man then that I became much later. I wish that I thanked him and walked home with my arm around his shoulder. I wish that I had thanked him for his kindness. For his thoughtfulness. For teaching me in his quiet and soft way to be a kind and gentle man. It took me many years to become this man. The one who maybe finally deserves to be his son.
Lovely! The tender steadiness of daily habits that bring some measure of comfort into our lives is perhaps the most reliable but the least acknowledged expression of love. I can picture your father in the snow, shivering as he starts the car for you, proud of your striving to learn and go to school so far away and wanting to ease your journey as he can. Both of you are grateful to the other and brief of words but loving through protective gestures. And now you have so many words at your command and I think he can hear your heart calling them out as beloved ancestors can over generations. Maybe we don't say thank you at the time as we should but gratitude echoes through time and though delayed is never too late. Keep on writing your song.