My papa's Waltz

Two Poems, Two Fathers, Two Sons Both Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" and Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" are about a man's memories of his boyhood relationship with his father. Both are about communication, but beyond that, these two relationship could not be more different. Roethke had a strong and positive relationship with his father that couldn't be expressed. Hayden's relationship with his father was also wordless. It is significant that Roethke's poem addresses the …

…performing these "austere and lonely offices" that meant nothing to the boy at the time (Hayden, line 14). In these two poems we have two fathers and two sons. One grew up treating his father with indifference because he was so afraid that his father was indifferent to him; the other grew up sharing memorable and happy times because his father was able to give of himself so completely. The difference is not love; it's communication.