Sad Poetry Friday

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?

Do you know why I love this poem? Because it's the opposite of Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off." In "Shake It Off," we're asked to identify with a superwoman, a character unflappable, unmoved by life's indignities. (At least, that's how the speaker portrays herself; we might wonder, after the Kanye situation and the Trump debacle, whether the speaker continues to feel so blithe.) I don't relate to Taylor's speaker at all. I never "shake it off." I frequently find myself paralyzed in anger and self-castigation. If Ms. Swift had written a song entitled "Seethe with Rage," I would have found the words more understandable and--oddly--more comforting.

I enjoy Robert Hayden's poem because it's a quiet expression of crazed, fruitless grief. The best kind of expression. The speaker is in adulthood, looking back. He recalls his dad getting up early on Sundays (that "too" slows down the sentence, makes us feel as if we're meeting the speaker mid-thought, and makes the father a bit like Job, stunned by ceaseless duty). We see Dad stirring in the "blueblack cold" (each of those syllables is stressed, and the image suggests that "cold" has a color. And how can morning darkness be simultaneously blue and black? It can. Anyone who has been up at 5 AM on a winter day in Buffalo knows what Hayden is talking about.) The father is like Prometheus, using "cracked hands" to make "banked fires blaze." (The weather is hostile here; the cold is like an invader; the weekday climes will "crack your hands.") And then the stanza ends ominously: "No one ever thanked him." The words are left without comment--a time-bomb, a Chekhovian handgun. We know we'll get an explosion later on.

Cracked hands can "splinter and break" the cold; fire drives out the invader. Dad waits until the rooms are warm, then calls for his son. (There is maybe not warmth in his voice--this is a house of "chronic angers"--but there's warmth in the rooms, and can't the fire do the talking?) The boy will "wake and hear," "rise and dress"; consonance will make him slither out of his room like a snake ("sssslowly I would risssse and dresssss"). The chronic anger in this family has infected even the house--as if past fights are stored up in the rafters and beams; this is a haunted house. No hope for long-lasting change; the problems are "chronic."

"Speaking indifferently to him." The speaker conceals any deep feeling with an adolescent grunt. So much churns along under a near-wordless encounter between two men, who likely feel everything for each other *except* indifference. Words and thoughts are at odds. Dad is a mythical figure--driver-out of the cold, shoe-polisher who acts before sun-up. And then the explosion of the time-bomb: "What did I know, what did I know--of love's austere and lonely offices?" So much grief! The repetition of "what did I know" makes me think of a hysterical defendant before a jury, semi-articulate, pleading, trying to make the inconceivable and irrational sound plausible. (In hindsight, it looks awful, but back then, "What did I know? What did I know?") Love's offices--its Stations of the Cross--are "austere and lonely." Love is often something other than a stroll in the park. It's like breastfeeding; your nipple is left battered and drained, "like iguana skin," and no one ever thanks you. We leave the speaker alone with his remorse; we'd like to tell him to "Shake It Off," but that seems not-very-helpful. A problem isn't solved--just articulated. And that's enough. A piece of writing doesn't have to answer questions; it just has to raise the questions with clarity and insight, with words that you yourself would never use.

Has Taylor Swift read Robert Hayden? Who's to say? I wouldn't put it past that lady. Some food for thought on a Friday morning. I relate strongly to Hayden's hapless, weak, and overwhelmed speaker--and I hope you do, too. Happy Weekend!