#robert hayden

[havingapoemwithyou]

Ice Storm by Robert Hayden

[apoemaday]

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?

[iphigeniacomplex]

The Ballad of Nat Turner by Robert Hayden

Then fled, O brethren, the wicked juba and wandered wandered far from curfew joys in the Dismal’s night. Fool of St. Elmo’s fire

In scary night I wandered, praying, Lord God my harshener, speak to me now or let me die; speak, Lord, to this mourner.

And came at length to livid trees where Ibo warriors hung shadowless, turning in wind that moaned like Africa,

Their belltongue bodies dead, their eyes alive with the anger deep in my own heart. Is this the sign, the sign forepromised me?

The spirits vanished. Afraid and lonely I wandered on in blackness. Speak to me now or let me die. Die, whispered the blackness.

And wild things gasped and scuffled in the night; seething shapes of evil frolicked upon the air. I reeled with fear, I prayed.

Sudden brightness clove the preying darkness, brightness that was itself a golden darkness, brightness so bright that it was darkness.

And there were angels, their faces hidden from me, angels at war with one another, angels in dazzling combat. And oh the splendor,

The fearful splendor of that warring. Hide me, I cried to rock and bramble. Hide me, the rock, the bramble cried. . . .  How tell you of that holy battle?

The shock of wing on wing and sword on sword was the tumult of a taken city burning. I cannot say how long they strove,

For the wheel in a turning wheel which is time in eternity had ceased its whirling, and owl and moccasin, panther and nameless beast

And I were held like creatures fixed in flaming, in fiery amber. But I saw I saw oh many of those mighty beings waver,

Waver and fall, go streaking down into swamp water, and the water hissed and steamed and bubbled and locked shuddering shuddering over

The fallen and soon was motionless. Then that massive light began a-folding slowly in upon itself, and I

Beheld the conqueror faces and, lo, they were like mine, I saw they were like mine and in joy and terror wept, praising praising Jehovah.

Oh praised my honer, harshener till a sleep came over me, a sleep heavy as death. And when I awoke at last free

And purified, I rose and prayed and returned after a time to the blazing fields, to the humbleness. And bided my time.

[headlightsforever]

Robert Hayden

[liuisi]

emptying out my saved poetry #2: those winter sundays, robert hayden

[jessicainlecto]

Part VI: 15 Favourite Poems

The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry

2. The Song of the Happy Shepherd, by W.B. Yeats

3. Song, by Allen Ginsberg

4. A Dead Statesman, by Rudyard Kipling

5. Peonies, by Mary Oliver

6. A letter in October, by Ted Kooser

7. Prayer, by Ellen Bass

8. Church, by James Crews

9. She Tells Her Love While Half-Asleep, by Robert Graves

10. Kinder Than Man, by Althea Davis

11. Those Winter Sundays, by Robert Hayden

12. Maggie Smith Said We Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Lyndsay Rush

13. Wondrous, by Sarah Freligh

14. Departure, by Louise Gluck

15. Like a City, by Jehane Markham

See also Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

[metamorphesque]

poems that remind me of monet’s paintings 

Monet's Haystacks by Robert Bly

Monet's Waterlilies by Robert Hayden

Entering the Kingdom by Mary Oliver

Give Me Your Hand by Gabriela Mistral

Flower-Gathering by Robert Frost

Water and Flowers by Ameen Rihani

Early Spring by Rainer Maria Rilke

Notebook Fragments by Ocean Vuong

[The flowers and my love,] by Ono no Komachi

Love Song by Rainer Maria Rilke

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

the poem is a dream telling you its time by Marwa Helal

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

The Spring Has Many Silences by Laura Riding Jackson

When Spring by Alberto Caeiro

[contremineur]

What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden, final lines to Those winter Sundays

from here