I am a big poetry reader. I grew up on it, thrive on it, lived for it in high school, and even dabble with writing it. If I had to choose one favorite poet it would be Carl Sandburg. The man was a genius. He writes the most realistic and accessible poetry I've ever read. People who think they don't like poetry should read Sandburg. He writes of the every day in the way we like to think of it in our heads. Like when you imagine how you would draw something - your mind makes it so so beautiful but your hand just can't translate it to the page.
Sandburg also wrote some of the most wonderful children's stories ever recorded (The Rootabaga Stories) and wonderful biographies. The man was incredible and is such a hero of mine. One of his quotes that I especially love is "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." It is literally the first quotation I added to my file of "quotes I might embroider."
Should I babble on about embroidery and color choices and motifs and charts? Certainly not. I'll babble about that tomorrow (the piece is actually finished now but I want to take daylight photos). Instead I shall share with you some excerpts from what is perhaps my favorite Sandburg poem, Honey and Salt. It is found in the book of the same name, which is also my favorite Sandburg book ever.
When boy meets girl or girl meets boy--
what helps?
They all help: be cozy but not too cozy:
be shy, bashful, mysterious, yet only so-so:
then forget everything you ever heard about love
for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn
and it comes as weather comes and you can't change it:
it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came
and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and hands--
and nothing can be done about it--you wait and pray.
Is the key to love in passion, knowledge, affection?
All three--along with moonlight, roses, groceries,
givings and forgivings, gettings and forgettings,
keepsakes and room rent,
pearls of memory along with ham and eggs.
How long does love last?
As long as glass bubbles handled with care
or two hot-house orchids in a blizzard
or one solid immovable steel anvil
tempered in sure inexorable welding--
or again love might last as
six snowflakes, six hexagonal snowflakes,
six floating hexagonal flakes of snow
Bidden or unbidden? how comes love?
Both bidden and unbidden, a sneak and a shadow,
a dawn in a doorway throwing a dazzle
or a sash of light in a blue fog,
a slow blinking of two red lanterns in river mist
I'll post the full poem in the comments. I don't want to overwhelm you. It is worth reading. I meant to read it at my sister's wedding but I was crying too much (which surprised me greatly, I adore my sister and brother-in-law but I'm not the "crying at weddings" sort).
"Honey and Salt"
ReplyDeleteA bag of tricks--is it?
And a game smoothies play?
If you're good with a deck of cards
or rolling the bones--that helps?
If you can tell jokes and be a chum
and make an impression--that helps?
When boy meets girl or girl meets boy--
what helps?
They all help: be cozy but not too cozy:
be shy, bashful, mysterious, yet only so-so:
then forget everything you ever heard about love
for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn
and it comes as weather comes and you can't change it:
it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came
and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and hands--
and nothing can be done about it--you wait and pray.
Is there any way of measuring love?
Yes but not till long afteward
when the beat of your heart has gone
many miles, far into the big numbers.
Is the key to love in passion, knowledge, affection?
All three--along with moonlight, roses, groceries,
givings and forgivings, gettings and forgettings,
keepsakes and room rent,
pearls of memory along with ham and eggs.
Can love be locked away and kept hid?
Yes and it gathers dust and mildew
and shrivels itself in shadows
unless it learns the sun can help,
snow, rain, storms can help--
birds in their one-room family nests
shaken by winds cruel and crazy--
they can all help:
lock not away your love nor keep it hid.
How comes the first sign of love?
In a chill, in a personal sweat,
in a you and me, us, us two,
in a couple of answers,
an amethyst haze on the horizon,
two dance programs criss-crossed,
jackknife initials interwoven,
five fresh violets lost in sea salt,
birds flying at single big moments
in and out a thousand windows,
a horse, two horses, many horses,
a silver ring, a brass cry,
a golden gong going ong ong ong ong-ng-ng,
pink doors closing one by one
to sunset nightsongs along the west,
shafts and handles of stars,
folds of moonmist curtains,
winding and unwinding wips of fogmist.
How long does love last?
As long as glass bubbles handled with care
or two hot-house orchids in a blizzard
or one solid immovable steel anvil
tempered in sure inexorable welding--
or again love might last as
six snowflakes, six hexagonal snowflakes,
six floating hexagonal flakes of snow
or the oaths between hydrogen and oxygen
in one cup of spring water
or the eyes of bucks and does
or two wishes riding on the back of a
morning wind in winter
or one corner of an ancient tabernacle
held sacred for personal devotions
or dust yes dust in a little solemn heap
played on by changing winds.
There are sanctuaries
holding honey and salt.
There are those who
spill and spend.
There are those who
search and save.
And love may be a quest
with silence and content.
Can you buy love?
Sure every day with money, clothes, candy,
with promises, flowers, big-talk,
with laughter, sweet-talk, lies,
every day men and women buy love
and take it away and things happen
and they study about it
and the longer they look at it
the more it isn't love they bought at all:
bought love is a guaranteed imitation.
Can you sell love?
Yes you can sell it and take the price
and think it over
and look again at the price
and cry and cry to yourself
and wonder who was selling what and why.
Evensong lights floating black night waters,
a lagoon of stars washed in velvet shadows,
a great storm cry from white sea-horses--
these moments cost beyond all prices.
Bidden or unbidden? how comes love?
Both bidden and unbidden, a sneak and a shadow,
a dawn in a doorway throwing a dazzle
or a sash of light in a blue fog,
a slow blinking of two red lanterns in river mist
or a deep smoke winding one hump of a mountain
and the smoke becomes a smoke known to your own
twisted individual garments:
the winding of it gets into your walk, your hands,
your face and eyes.
"Kisses Can You Come Back Like Ghosts?"
ReplyDeleteIf we ask you to gleam through the tears,
Kisses, can you come back like ghosts?
Today, tomorrow, the gateways take them.
"Always some door eats my shadow."
Love is a clock and the works wear out.
Love is a violin and the wood rots.
Love is a day with night at the end.
Love is a summer with falltime after.
Love dies always and when it dies it is dead
And when it is dead there is nothing more to it
And when there is nothing more to it then we say
This is the end, it comes always, it came to us.
And now we will bury it and put it away
Beautifully and decently, like a clock or a violin,
Like a summer day near falltime,
Like any lovely thing brought to the expected end.
Yes, let it go at that.
The clock rang and we answered.
The moon swept an old valley.
And we counted all of its rings.
The water-birds flipped in the river
And flicked their wing-points in sunset gold.
To the moon and the river water-birds,
To these we answered as the high calls rang.
And now? Now we take the clock and put it away.
Now we count again the rings of the valley moon
and put them away as keepsakes.
Now we count the river-birds once more and let
them slip loose and slip up the valley curve.
This is the end, there is always an end.