I cried over things knowing no beautiful things, not one, not one … lasts
Adapted from:
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, The mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, New beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, And the old things go, not one lasts.
Autumn by Carl Sandburg in Chicago Poems as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, (Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1950).
It’s just a building, I know.
And I know it was MASSIVELY renovated under Mr. Truman.
But understand, without much structural attention since being turned over to John Adams and being burned by the Brits in 1812, that building was falling down.
According to wikipedia:
By late 1948, three main options were considered for replacement of the White House:
Demolish and rebuild the interior, keeping the exterior walls intact.
Demolish the building entirely and construct a new executive mansion.
Demolish the building entirely, salvage the exterior walls and rebuild them and a new interior.
Two of the options were DEMOLISH ENTIRELY.
And the decision was made to Demolish and rebuild the interior, keeping the exterior walls intact.
Also from Wikipedia, Historic preservation of buildings during this time was not as strict or defined as it became later. For its time, simply not demolishing the entire structure was deemed “preservation”. Winslow envisioned many of the interior items – from doors, trim, woodwork, and ornamental plaster – would be reused. Most were carefully dismantled, labelled, catalogued, and stored. Much of the paneling was reinstalled in the main public rooms, but other historic elements were simply copied to accommodate increasing cost and time constraints. Many of the original materials that were not deemed of significantly identifiable historic value, such as marble fireplace mantels, or not deemed to be readily reused, such as pipes, were sent to landfills.
So is it the building where Mrs. Adams hung her laundry up in to dry, where Lincoln walked and FDR rolled?
Well not really, but there is this scene in my memory that I read about where Carl Sandburg, visited FDR in what is now the Yellow Room but in that day, was FDR’s study.
Sandburg, according to the story, stood at a window, hand on the window frame, and said something like, “This is where Lincoln stood, looking south to Virginia.”
FDR asked, “How can you know?”
Sandburg responded, “… I can tell.”
That window, the window Mr. Lincoln looked through, the window that Sandberg rested his hand on, that’s still there.
people with song mouths connecting song hearts; people who must sing or die
For Labor Day, 2025.
Adapted from Work Gangs by Carl Sandburg as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.
Work Gangs
Box cars run by a mile long. And I wonder what they say to each other When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack. Maybe their chatter goes: I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line. I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards. I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers. I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with watermelons from Mississippi next year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen walk and look.
Then the hammer heads talk to the handles, then the scoops of the shovels talk, how the day’s work nicked and trimmed them, how they swung and lifted all day, how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope. In the night of the dark stars when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle, in the night on the mile long sidetracks, in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners, the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams— and sometimes they doze and don’t care for nothin’, and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories, stars. The stuff of it runs like this: A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep sniffs for our lungs on the way. Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman’s lantern with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all, sleep is the first and last and best of all.
People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
I went looking for a quote about Labor in the back of my mind that memory said was in Harry Truman’s address in Philadelphia accepting the nomination of the Democratic National Convention. I found ” … labor never had but one friend in politics, and that is the Democratic Party and Franklin D. Roosevelt.”
But what I also came across was this:
The United States has to accept its full responsibility for leadership in international affairs.
We have been the backers and the people who organized and started the United Nations, first started under that great Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson, as the League of Nations. The League was sabotaged by the Republicans in 1920.
And we must see that the United Nations continues a strong and growing body, so we can have everlasting peace in the world.
We removed trade barriers in the world, which is the best asset we can have for peace.
Those trade barriers must not be put back into operation again.
Harry had some wild ideas back then.
Raise minimum wage.
Universal Health Care.
This was the famous Give’em Hell Harry speech.
Mr. Truman later said all he did was tell the truth … which made the Republican’s feel like they were in hell.
make us one new dream us who forget out of storms let us have one star
Sunrise in storms clouds over Pinckney Island, South Carolina on Thursday morning.
Adapted from a Prayer after World War by Carl Sandburg, in Smoke and Steel as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.
Wandering oversea dreamer, Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother, Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood, Child of the hair let down, and tears, Child of the cross in the south And the star in the north,
Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France, Keeper of England and Poland and Spain, Make us a song for to-morrow. Make us one new dream, us who forget, Out of the storm let us have one star.
Struggle, Oh anvils, and help her. Weave with your wool, Oh winds and skies. Let your iron and copper help, Oh dirt of the old dark earth.
Wandering oversea singer, Singing of ashes and blood, Child of the scars of fire, Make us one new dream, us who forget. Out of the storm let us have one star.
No Haiku For You 