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?
Theme: The poem depicts quiet parental sacrifice, familial duty and late emotional realization. It portrays a father who endures bitter cold and hard labour every day out of unspoken love for his family. The text also emphasizes how children often fail to understand or appreciate the simple and unglamorous nature of parents devotion or love until they grow up.