"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden (poetry reading)

The most moving love poem I have read: "love's austere and lonely offices" is so simple and succinct that rarely has so much been expressed in so few words.

"Austere" means severely self-disciplined, enduring hardship for a higher purpose.. "Offices" are duties, actions which go with a role, in this case the role of a loving father. The purpose of love is what it motivates a person to do for another with no expectation of anything in return. He received no thanks and expected none.

I apologise for departing from my usual sotto voce with this uncharacteristic effusion.

He grew up in a poor district of Detroit, he had a hard childhood, his sight was impaired. He was awarded the grand prize for poetry at the first festival of Negro Arts in 1966.