Carl Sandburg: Another Meeting.
Carl Sandburg's Birthplace and Childhood Home
I was born in the morning of the world,
So I know how morning looks…
Morning looks like people look,
like a cornfield wanting corn,
like a sea wanting ships.
Tell me about any strong beautiful wanting
And there is your morning, my morning,
everybody’s morning. From Timesweep
On October 11th, 2008, we were driving down I-26 in North Carolina when we spotted a sign for (poet) Carl Sandburg’s historic home, located off the next exit. This writer is monumental to me, so we immediately exited the highway and found ourselves in one of the most delicious afternoons I can remember… I wrote about the experience here.
So. On October 13th, 2009, we were driving across I-74 from Des Moines to Cincinnati, when we spotted a sign for the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site in Galesburg IL, coming up at the next exit. On this trip we deliberated only a moment; it was getting late and we had hours to go… But- seriously.
We made our way through Galesburg’s rainy windswept streets lined with old houses, warehouses, small shops… Train tracks intersected this way and that, trains coming and going every few minutes, creaking and rumbling.
We pulled down the relatively quiet street where Sandburg grew up, and slowed in front of the house where he was born.
I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a slong and a slogan… –From Prairie
At this point we hadn’t made the connection with our previous Sandburg excursion almost exactly a year earlier. But there was a familiar sense of lush mystery as we rolled down the windows and peered into the cold.
The home & museum are only open for tours on Sundays, so we were limited to the grounds. Justin parked; we took it all in. It was a bitter cold day for October; it had rained all morning and the wind was up. I wrapped a blanket around me and the light coat I was wearing, and we huddled down the walk, around that tiny house, to the back lawn where Sandburg’s ashes are buried.
We had no idea this was here, and it was a bittersweet surprise. We stood and listened to the trains. Leaves fell.
Walkway leading to the back lawn
So here, what I wish I could have said over Mr. Sandburg’s stone of remembrance:
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
only an ocean of tomorrows,
a sky of tomorrows.
From Prairie
(Where will we see you again? These chance October meetings have stirred our souls.)
Tags: birthplace, Carl Sandburg, Galesburg, historic home, Illinois, morning, North Carolina, stone of remembrance