10.23.2025 – I cried over things

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.

Still there … for now.

9.1.2025 – people with song mouths

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.

I can see how that strategy would work today.

6.12.2025 – make us one new dream

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.

6.1.2025 – belongs to a church …

belongs to a church …
on certain Sundays enjoys
chanting Nicene creed

This is the Nicene Creed …

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father before all ages.
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

This may be the key phrase …

He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

Onion Days in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg, (1916)

Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti comes along Peoria Street every morning at nine o’clock
With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.

Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through the negligence of a fellow-servant,
Works ten hours a day, sometimes twelve, picking onions for Jasper on the Bowmanville road.

She takes a street car at half-past five in the morning, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti does,
And gets back from Jasper’s with cash for her day’s work, between nine and ten o’clock at night.

Last week she got eight cents a box, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, picking onions for Jasper,
But this week Jasper dropped the pay to six cents a box because so many women and girls were answering the ads in the Daily News.

Jasper belongs to an Episcopal church in Ravenswood and on certain Sundays
He enjoys chanting the Nicene creed with his daughters on each side of him joining their voices with his.

If the preacher repeats old sermons of a Sunday, Jasper’s mind wanders to his 700-acre farm and how he can make it produce more efficiently
And sometimes he speculates on whether he could word an ad in the Daily News so it would bring more women and girls out to his farm and reduce operating costs.

Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti is far from desperate about life; her joy is in a child she knows will arrive to her in three months.

And now while these are the pictures for today there are other pictures of the Giovannitti people I could give you for to-morrow,
And how some of them go to the county agent on winter mornings with their baskets for beans and cornmeal and molasses.

I listen to fellows saying here’s good stuff for a novel or it might be worked up into a good play.

I say there’s no dramatist living can put old Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti into a play with that kindling wood piled on top of her head coming along Peoria Street nine o’clock in the morning.

I repeat, this is the key phrase …

He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.

The Jasper’s of this world can hear if they want to.

3.20.2025 – these are heroes then

these are heroes then
on the street you see them
who will die fighting

These are heroes then — among the plain people—
Heroes, did you say? And why not? They
give all they’ve got and ask no questions and
take what comes and what more do you
want?

On the street you can see them any time, some
with jobs, some nothing doing, here a down-
and-out, there a game fighter who will die
fighting

From the The People, Yes: #19 by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, 1936).

Asking that simple question, while the Bible saws way back even in the OLD Testament:

Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:10)

Note the poor AND the foreigner!

So why do Republicans hate the poor and the foreigner?

To whom much is given … much will be … they know the rest and persist.

Here is the complete #19 of The People, Yes!

The people, yes, the people.

Everyone who got a letter today
And those the mail-carrier missed.
The women at the cookstoves preparing meals,
in a sewing corner mending, in a basement
laundering, woman the homemaker.

The women at the factory tending a stitching
machine, some of them the mainstay of the
jobless man at home cooking, laundering.
Streetwalking jobhunters, walkers alive and keen,
sleepwalkers drifting along, the stupefied and
hopeless down-and-outs, the game fighters
who will die fighting,

Walkers reading signs and stopping to study
windows, the signs and windows aimed
straight at their eyes, their wants,

Women in and out of doors to look and feel, to
try on, to buy and take away, to order and
have it charged and delivered, to pass by on
account of price and conditions.

The shopping crowds, the newspaper circulation.
the bystanders who witness parades, who
meet the boat, the tram, who throng in
wave lines to a fire, an explosion, an accident—
The people, yes—

Their shoe soles wearing holes in stone steps, their
hands and gloves wearing soft niches in ban-
isters of granite, two worn foot-tracks at the
general-delivery window.

Driving their cars, stop and go, red light, green
light, and the law of the traffic cop’s fingers,
on their way, loans and mortgages, margins to
cover.

Payments on the car, the bungalow, the radio, the
electric icebox, accumulated interest on loans
for past payments, the writhing point of
where the money will come from,

Crime thrown m their eyes from every angle,
crimes against property and person, crime in
the prints and films, crime as a lurking
shadow ready to spring into reality, crime as
a method and a technic.

Comedy as an offset to crime, the laughmakers,
the odd numbers m the news and the movies,
original clowns and imitators, and in the best
you never know what’s coming next even
when it’s hokum.

And sports, how a muff in the seventh lost yes-
terday’s game and now they are learning to
hit Dazzy’s fadeaway ball and did you hear
how Foozly plowed through that line for a
touchdown this afternoon^

And daily the death toll of the speed wagons, a
cripple a minute in fenders, wheels, steel and
glass splinters, a stammering witness before a
coroner’s jury, ‘It happened so sudden I
don’t know what happened “

And in the air a decree life is a gamble, take a
chance, you pick a number and see what you
get anything can happen in this sweepstakes
around the corner may be prosperity or the
worst depression yet who knows? nobody:
you pick a number, you draw a card, you
shoot the bones

In the poolrooms the young hear, “‘Ashes to
ashes, dust to dust, If the women don’t get
you then the whiskey must,” and in the
churches, “We walk by faith and not by sight,”
Often among themselves in their sessions of can-
dor the young saying, “Everything’s a racket,
only the gyp artists get by ”

And over and beyond the latest crime or comedy
always that relentless meal ticket saying
don’t-lose-me, hold your job, glue your mind
on that job or when your last nickel is gone
you live on your folks or sign for relief,

And the terror of these unknowns is a circle of
black ghosts holding men and women in toil
and danger, and sometimes shame, beyond
the dreams of their blossom days, the days
before they set out on their own

What IS this “occupational disease” we hear
about? It’s a sickness that breaks your health
on account of the work you’re in That’s all
Another kind of work and you’d have been
as good as any of them You’d have been
your old self

And what is this “hazardous occupation”? Why
that’s where you’re liable to break your neck
or get smashed on the job so you’re no good
on that job any more and that’s why you
can’t get any regular life insurance so long as
you’re on that job

These are heroes then — among the plain people—
Heroes, did you say? And why not? They
give all they’ve got and ask no questions and
take what comes and what more do you
want?

On the street you can see them any time, some
with jobs, some nothing doing, here a down-
and-out, there a game fighter who will die
fighting.