10.31.2024 – heard the sound of waves

heard the sound of waves
someone heard them years ago
as will years from now

Driving to work in the dark again, I park and get out of the car for the short walk to the office.

It is quiet, very quiet, even the birds are silent in the pre-dawn.

There is just of a low rumble sound of the surf to remind me that I am standing about a half mile from the Atlantic Coast.

Doing the math and staying with the median of 2800 miles for the width of the United States, the distance between me and the ocean is 0.0178571429% of the median width of the country.

The tide is coming and will reach a peak around 8 a.m. and cycle through to the day’s 2nd high tide around 8 p.m. tonight.

Happens twice every day.

Has happened twice every day since all this started and will continue twice a day for as long as it us supposed to.

Someone years ago, decades ago, centuries ago, could have stood here and heard the waves and watched the tide come in and go out.

Someone years from now, decades from now, centuries from now, might stand here and hear the waves and watch the tide come in and go out.

As Mr. Lincoln said one the field at Gettysburg, “The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here.”

I used to think that was pretty cool.

Back in the day when America dreamed big dreams for all people.

Back in the day when America stood up for dreaming big dreams for all people.

Back in the day when America was recognized for dreaming big dreams for all people.

Today?

Today, I am reminded of something else Mr. Lincoln.

“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history.

We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.“

Years from now, about all I count on is that the tide will come in and go out and someone might be here to see it and hear the waves.

Any marks we may have made will all be washed away.

And we just might thank God that it is.

10.30.2024 – money buys everything

money buys everything
‘cept love, personality,
freedom, or peace

Money is power so said one
Money is a cushion so said another
Money is the root of evil so said still another
Money means freedom so runs an old saying
And money is all of these – and more
Money pays for whatever you want — if you have the money
Money buys food, clothes, houses, land, guns, jewels, men, women, time to be lazy and listen to music
Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace

Carl Sandburg in The People, Yes as published in the Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1957.

Such cheek on my part to adapt Carl Sandburg and change around his words but there it is.

When Mr. Sandburg died in the summer of 1967, the office of President Lyndon Johnson issued this statement in his name.

THE ROAD has come to an end for Carl Sandburg, my friend

Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America. We knew and cherished him as the bard of democracy, the echo of the people, our conscience, and chronicler of truth and beauty and purpose.

Carl Sandburg needs no epitaph. It is written for all time in the fields, the cities, the face and heart of the land he loved and the people he celebrated and inspired.

With the world, we mourn his passing. It is our special pride and fortune as Americans that we will always hear Carl Sandburg’s voice within ourselves. For he gave us the truest and most enduring vision of our own greatness.

At a memorial service for Mr. Sandburg held in front of the Lincoln Memorial later that fall of 1967, President Johnson closed his remarks with:

He knew that always in America “the strong men keep coming on.”

I will miss him; we will all miss him. There will not be one like him again.

But that line of Mr. Johnson’s, “For he gave us the truest and most enduring vision of our own greatness.“

And I read … Money buys everything except love, personality, freedom, immortality, silence, peace.

I will miss him; we will all miss him. There will not be one like him again.

6.3.2024 – societies’ sake

societies’ sake
free from tyrants, exploiters
and legalized frauds

Adapted from:

The free man willing to pay and struggle and die
for the freedom for himself and others
Knowing how far to subject himself to discipline
and obedience for the sake of an ordered society
free from tyrants, exploiters and
legalized frauds

As published in The people, yes by Carl Sandburg, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1936.

Such interesting words get strung together.

Discipline.

Obedience.

Tyrants.

Exploiters

Legalized frauds.

Mr. Sandberg did not have access to social media that’s for sure.

5.29.2024 – sailing free sky blue

sailing free sky blue
sailing changing and sailing
let me have spring dreams

Spring Clouds – May 2024 – Broad River at Robert Smalls Parkway

Drift, and drift on, white ships.
Sailing the free sky blue, sailing and changing and sailing,
Oh, I remember in the blood of my dreams how they sang before me.
Oh, they were men and women who got money for their work, money or love or dreams.
Sail on, white ships.
Let me have spring dreams.

From Carlovingian Dreams as published in Smoke and Steel by Carl Sandburg, New York, Harcourt Brace, 1920

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.