Robert Hayden described the relationship between his father and his younger self in his poem “Those Winter Sundays.” Robert Hayden grew up in a poor neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan. Since his parents left him with family friends, he grew up with that family and didn't know his real name until he was forty. Hayden has also taught at a few universities. and published several of his poetry collections throughout his life; Written in retrospect, this particular poem is about his "adoptive father" and the relationship between the two of them, Hayden, the speaker of the poem, regrets the way he treated his father the way he did. grew up. Despite his father's hard work and efforts to show his love, Hayden failed to appreciate and recognize this man's gestures. Say No to Plagiarism Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get. original essay Hayden's father strove to be the diligent caretaker that every family desires. In the poem, the speaker explains that “on Sundays too, my father got up early” (1). This implied that the father got up early to work or to keep busy. business every day. Even on a world-famous day of rest, he would wake up at dawn to make sure everything required for that day was completed. His father also worked often, and presumably he got up quite early for that as well. Hayden explains that he gets up before the house is heated and "then, with cracked hands that ached / from weekday work, fires started / started..." (3-5). Even after having several days of drudgery and pain on his hands, the father woke up to make a fire, allowing the house to be warm before his family left their slumber. It is obvious, in these stark terms, that Hayden's father cherished his family and showed them that love by providing. The household as a whole often failed to thank the father for his efforts and care. In the poem, the speaker highlights everything the father does for them in the first stanza. He ends this stanza with “No one ever thanked him” (5). This literally shows that no one cared to thank him. The father worked hard to provide for them and loved them, but was never recognized for what he did. Hayden also described his situation on Sunday morning this way: “I would wake up and hear the cold breaking, breaking. / When the rooms were warm, he called me, / and slowly I got up and dressed” (6-8). He knew his father got up early to warm the house for the family, but he didn't appreciate what was being done. It was written that he "continually spoke to her with indifference", despite the fact that his father treated Hayden in a special way (10). The father heated the house, shined his shoes, and worked hard all week, but Hayden nor the rest of the family never acknowledged him. Looking back on the past, Hayden regrets the way he treated his father. He wrote this poem to recognize this and would have liked to recognize the love his father lavished on him. In the poem he writes that he always treated him badly and it is implied that he did not appreciate his motives. In the poem, regret emerges in Hayden's final words: "What did I know, what did I know / of the austere and solitary functions of love" (13-14). He chose these words to show that he wishes he could change his ignorance of the past. The stark word shows the dark sadness his father may have felt at never being thanked. If Hayden could have gone back to his youth, he would have treated his father as special and been grateful for what he had done for him and.. 263.