Carl Sandburg, Poet and North Carolina Home

CARL SANDBURG (click) 

Carl Sandburg is one of my favorite one of my favorite poets.  When I was a young student I had the good fortune to hear him read his work in person.  It was in the later years of his life, but he still held a commanding presence.  He was originally from the mid west, but moved with his family to North Carolina.  Flat Rock is not far from Asheville.  His Flat Rock home (click)is now a museum and during the summer college students sing and perform songs from his anthology of American Folk Music.  There is also a petting zoo for children with baby goats.  His wife raised prize winning goats on the farm.  There are stories about goats running through the house while Carl Sandburg was doing his writing.  

I have always loved poetry, to me it is like painting a picture with words.  The impetus of creativity is the same to me, it is only the form of expression we use...whether it me pin, brush or instrument.  

Carl Sandburg was a master at his craft...Chicago is his most famous poem.  

Carl Sandburg's Flat Rock, North Carolina Home        from google image

Carl Sandburg

CHICAGO

     HOG Butcher for the World,
     Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
     Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
     Stormy, husky, brawling,
     City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
     have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
     luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
     is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
     kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
     faces of women and children I have seen the marks
     of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
     sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
     and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
     so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
     job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
     little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
     as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
          Bareheaded,
          Shoveling,
          Wrecking,
          Planning,
          Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
     white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
     man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
     never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
     and under his ribs the heart of the people,
               Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
     Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
     Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
     Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

ANDY'S LAST RIDE

ANDY'S LAST RIDE                    JUNE 13, 2012                          photo by elizabeth gorodon

As you know through my posts, I have been in New Orleans to be with my partner and her Father while he was ill with bone cancer.  The journey is now complete.  And this post is to honor a man, his life, and the journey of a family taking their last journey with their loved one.
Andy was from a generation of extraordinary people. He and my Mother were born in the same small township area in rural Southern Mississippi just with in a few short years of each other, thought they never knew each other growing up.  They lived through WW II and a great depression.  They were people who learned to depend on their own individuality and survival skills.  If they couldn't do it themselves, it wasn't going to get done.  They grew up on poor farms in a rural poverty stricken area, but both came out as extraordinary people with great strength of character. I admire them both, and recognize my generation did not quite get their strength of character. So this is a tribute to a wonderful man, a family's journey with pain and illness, and the trip we all take with our loved ones at some point.  But mostly it is a tribute to Andy, a man who chose to be there for his family, and a man who chose to have strength of character like cowboy heroes of old...Roy Rodgers and that ilk...the man with the white hat riding into the sunset.


Rise at 6:00 am
Ready himself for the day
with soldier like discipline
shave, shower, breakfast
off to the mall, his family waiting


a family of friends waiting for coffee and a day's greeting
conversation of the day's events, jokes, laughter, who is ill, who has died,
friendship bonded in daily caring and fending off aloneness


the days are made one by one,
with a smile, a hug, a joke, and a flirt
pretending you are young once again,
Boggy and McCall-ness, and hope of more,
of youth, of love, and worth and purpose


Sundays' church man walks down the isles,
a tred worn on carpet 50 years, collections taken,
salvation asked for, and faith shown not with pomp and circumstance,
but like an old coat worn and comfortable, lived in and known


Rock strong, this man, family caretaker, family provider, always there,
aways dependable, never giving up


now the time is waning and the afternoon light in long shadows, the last ride is upon him,
he mounts his steel pony, and heads in once last time to laugh with his friends, his mall family,
now it is his last, bravely so, he tilts his hat, and with great humor takes the road upon him.