Those Winter Sundays

1. B. The repetition underscores the speaker’s regret; you can almost see him sighing and shaking his head as he repeats his question.

2. A. The cracked hands reveal a lot about the father. They are worn from labor, but still they build fires and polish shoes, performing paternal duties that quietly showcase their affection for the speaker.

3. “Then with cracked hands that ached / from labor…” Enjambment occurs when a sentence runs over the line break and into the next line without punctuation.

4. C. The final stanza provides the best evidence for this theme, as the now-grown speaker reflects on what he couldn’t understand as a child. Building fires, warming the rooms, and polishing shoes are not overtly performative actions of love, but they are loving acts nonetheless, performed with care.