3.18.2024 – fresh and fair come back

fresh and fair come back
hang over pasture and road
lowland grasses rise

From the poem, Uplands as published in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).

Wonder as of old things
Fresh and fair come back
Hangs over pasture and road.
Lush in the lowland grasses rise
And upland beckons to upland.
The great strong hills are humble.

According to National Wildlife Federation Website, The Southern Live Oak “…Unlike most oak trees, which are deciduous, southern live oaks are nearly evergreen. They replace their leaves over a short period of several weeks in the spring.

Southern live oaks are fast-growing trees, but their growth rate slows with age. They may reach close to their maximum trunk diameter within 70 years. The oldest live oaks in the country are estimated to be between several hundred to more than a thousand years old.”

Wonder of old things.

Fresh and fair come back.

You can walk under them in the Spring time and your feet rustle in the fresh fallen leaves of the same Spring time along the Spanish Moss Trail in Beaufort County, South Carolina.

The trail is a rails-to-trails project that follows a track of a small South Carolina Railroad line through the salt marshes and live oaks of the South Carolina Low Country.

What was the name of that railroad you ask?

What else but the Magnolia Line.

3.1.2024 – sea is never still

sea is never still
pounds on the shore restless as
a young heart, hunting

THE sea is never still.
It pounds on the shore
Restless as a young heart,
Hunting.

The sea speaks
And only the stormy hearts
Know what it says:
It is the face
of a rough mother speaking.

The sea is young.
One storm cleans all the hoar
And loosens the age of it.
I hear it laughing, reckless.

They love the sea,
Men who ride on it
And know they will die
Under the salt of it

Let only the young come,
Says the sea.

Let them kiss my face
And hear me.
I am the last word
And I tell
Where storms and stars come from.

From The Young Sea in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).

2.13.2024 – a captured sunrise

a captured sunrise
fire and gold of sky and sea
bannered with fire, gold

Based on the poem, Monotone by Carl Sandburg as printed in Chicago Poems (H. Holt and Company, New York, 1916), the section titled, Fog and Fires.

The poem reads:

The monotone of the rain is beautiful,
And the sudden rise and slow relapse
Of the long multitudinous rain.

The sun on the hills is beautiful,
Or a captured sunset sea-flung,
Bannered with fire and gold.

A face I know is beautiful —
With fire and gold of sky and sea,
And the peace of long warm rain.

It rained all yesterday.

It rained all last night.

A long multitudinous rain.

This morning as I drove over the Cross Island Parkway bridge, the sun broke through, and bannered the sky with fire and gold.

Sometimes I feel a little goofy, sheepish maybe, that so many times I have used photos of the sunrise from this bridge.

But all times, I know I would feel worse if I crossed that bridge and didn’t notice anything special.

As for turning to the word painting of Mr. Sandburg for content, I make no apology.

2.8.2024 – God, it is something

God, it is something
face the sun know you are free
hear the undersong

IT is something to face the sun and know you are free.
To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth
And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean:
It is something.
To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands,
Clean for the day book today and the record of the after days,
Held at your side proud, satisfied to the last, and ready,
So to have clean hands:
God, it is something,
One day of life so
And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out
And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.
Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth.
O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum.
And O the great brave men, the silent little brave men, proud of their hands—clutching the knuckles of their fingers into fists ready for death and the dark, ready for life and the fight, the pay and the memories — O the men proud of their hands.

Clean Hands by Carl Sandburg as printed in Smoke and steel, (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920)

Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth

On June 17, 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Monroe, “I sincerely wish you may find it convenient to come here. The pleasure of the trip will be less than you expect but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country, it’s soil, it’s climate, it’s equality, liberty, laws, people and manners. My god! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.”

Two years before the Constitution, they were both future Presidents but that was a job that didn’t even exist yet.

As I drive to work and face the sun with clean hands I feel the sun on my face but cannot help but hear the sob and its undersong.

I read the news and I think, My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of.

1.26.2024 – fog, little cat feet

fog, little cat feet
sits looking over harbor
on silent haunches

From Fog in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).

I will bet you one dollar you knew this poem.

I will double that bet and guess you knew it was Mr. Sandburg.

I will double that bet and guess that its the only poem by Mr. Sandburg you know.

Maybe a safe bet, but if there are two things I hope from all this is that most folks know this poem and that it is by this poet and for today, and you know what, that is enough!

So let us go on out to the kitchen and grab ourselves a beer to celebrate if I won or do the same thing if I lost.

Fog as published in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

By the way with a 60 degree swing in the temperature since last weekend and with the ocean still at about 55 degrees, we gots ourselves a FOG warning here in the Low Country / Coastal Empire.

That’s what they call it down here.