Those Winter Sundays Essay

For my gut reaction writing, I read “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. The poem brought back memories of cold winter nights by the fire. My living room has a gas fire, and even when it is below 40, the living room can still be 80. The second stanza reminded me of the days I would spend cross country skiing, especially the part where Hayden says the cold is splintering and breaking, because when you are cross country skiing in the mountains around Seattle, you can hear each little sound caused by the wildlife in the trees. The other part of the stanza also rang true to me. My parents divorced when I was young, and I spent most of my time with my dad early on. He was working a whole lot at this time, and he would be short-tempered sometimes,
Looking back on my early teens and before that, I realize now that I was kind of a brat. My dad did a lot for me when I was young, the dirty work especially, when he had to be the bad guy, and I rarely thanked him. I always seemed to thank my mom, for some reason that was easy. One thing I really like about this poem is the nature imagery; it made me feel at home for some reason. In Seattle, you get all four seasons, so the hot and cold stuff really resonated with me. Going back to the cold splintering and breaking, when I read that line I swear I could smell snow and pine trees. Then when the poem went back to talking about warm rooms, I smelled burning campfire wood, but also a little bit of gas, probably from my stove at home. The third stanza really reminds me of myself. Often times, I find myself being passive aggressive toward my dad, and often times I find my dad being passive aggressive toward me. I already talked about how I find it hard to thank my dad, and the second and third lines in this stanza bring that back up. He does so much for me yet I can’t thank him. By reading what I’ve read, one might think my dad and I have a bad