Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden
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?
There is nearly a foot of snow on top of Mt. Washington. You can see it shining in the morning sun like a great crystal. Chairlifts are chugging, hunters are hunting, and football is on in the living room. Sweatpants weather, coffee weather, book weather, time for roasts and soups and bread, time for family and movies and rest. The verge of winter in New England.
When I was a kid I loved to play video games with my brother. Fall was a great time for video games; too cold to skateboard, not enough snow to ski. We huddled up on one computer, an old iMac, and played for hours. Mom would call us out for dinner. Cauliflower spaghetti, spinach crepes, pesto and corn, lasagna, pork tenderloin, the whole Moosewood catalog; we emerged from the computer room squinting, hunched, two hungry trolls. My dad called it the cave. It was wonderful, comfortable, it was home.
Years later I am still finding those feelings of home but the circumstances have changed. I am a father now and so the role is switched; the comforted now must be the comforter. I chop the firewood and make the coffee like my Dad did when I was young, I even watch football. I get up early and make sure the house is warm, I go out into the cold. We cook, we love to cook and, like my Mom, we have our specialties. Roasted root vegetables, roasted chicken, beef and rice, salmon chowder, pesto and bacon, and lasagna. A rotation of familiar food. A reliable routine that creates comfort and home.
On the verge of winter I find time to think about my new home and the home I grew up in. What unites these two places, what have we brought with us down the halls of time? Books seem a constant in my life, just having them around, strewn about, always cracked in half on the floor or sitting dog-eared all to hell in a pile, most of them half read. A fireplace. Music. The food. The food remains a constant.
There is nearly a foot of snow on top of Mt. Washington and so we bundle up. The vegetables and meats we eat on the verge of Winter inform the way our bodies change with the seasons. On the verge of Winter we come indoors and find our home waiting for us; warm, comfortable, constant, and familiar. It speaks to us of our past homes, it says: come in, sit down, eat up.
Thanks for being with us this Winter,
Stowell P Watters
the vegetables
beets
carrots
potatoes
kale
lettuce
onions
leeks
spinach
cranberries
winter squash
rosemary
rutabaga
by Robert Hayden
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?
There is nearly a foot of snow on top of Mt. Washington. You can see it shining in the morning sun like a great crystal. Chairlifts are chugging, hunters are hunting, and football is on in the living room. Sweatpants weather, coffee weather, book weather, time for roasts and soups and bread, time for family and movies and rest. The verge of winter in New England.
When I was a kid I loved to play video games with my brother. Fall was a great time for video games; too cold to skateboard, not enough snow to ski. We huddled up on one computer, an old iMac, and played for hours. Mom would call us out for dinner. Cauliflower spaghetti, spinach crepes, pesto and corn, lasagna, pork tenderloin, the whole Moosewood catalog; we emerged from the computer room squinting, hunched, two hungry trolls. My dad called it the cave. It was wonderful, comfortable, it was home.
Years later I am still finding those feelings of home but the circumstances have changed. I am a father now and so the role is switched; the comforted now must be the comforter. I chop the firewood and make the coffee like my Dad did when I was young, I even watch football. I get up early and make sure the house is warm, I go out into the cold. We cook, we love to cook and, like my Mom, we have our specialties. Roasted root vegetables, roasted chicken, beef and rice, salmon chowder, pesto and bacon, and lasagna. A rotation of familiar food. A reliable routine that creates comfort and home.
On the verge of winter I find time to think about my new home and the home I grew up in. What unites these two places, what have we brought with us down the halls of time? Books seem a constant in my life, just having them around, strewn about, always cracked in half on the floor or sitting dog-eared all to hell in a pile, most of them half read. A fireplace. Music. The food. The food remains a constant.
There is nearly a foot of snow on top of Mt. Washington and so we bundle up. The vegetables and meats we eat on the verge of Winter inform the way our bodies change with the seasons. On the verge of Winter we come indoors and find our home waiting for us; warm, comfortable, constant, and familiar. It speaks to us of our past homes, it says: come in, sit down, eat up.
Thanks for being with us this Winter,
Stowell P Watters
the vegetables
beets
carrots
potatoes
kale
lettuce
onions
leeks
spinach
cranberries
winter squash
rosemary
rutabaga
