Those winter Sundays

This is probably my favorite poem that I have read in the poetry packets you have given us. My father is one of my biggest inspirations, so this poem really touched me. Actually, to be honest, it made me cry.

The imagery in this poem was so beautiful, I wouldn't do it justice by trying to explain it, but I can try. I could picture my father waking up early on a cold, winter day to do things that required labor only a man could really do by himself. Today, he actually replaced the headlight on my car, and I found myself wondering what I would possibly do without him. His hands were cracked from the cold, and I gave him lotion and gloves. My father has always been a man who has worked awfully hard his whole life, and I think that is the man in the poem as well. And the author was filled with regret that he never had the chance to show his father how much he appreciated the fact that he was always there for him-- in fact, it almost seems as if he were arrogant and rude to his father, which troubles him with even more regret.

"Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well."

I picture the antecedent to be a grown man writing about how much he regrets not showing his father how much he loved him back when he was a teenager.

"What did I know, what did I know

Of love's austere and lonely offices?"

What did he know of how much his father loved him?

What do I know of how much my father loves me?

What does my father know of how much I love him?

A lot, I hope, because I just reminded him...for the tenth time today.