Blue Island Intersection — Summary

Carl SandburgContemplative

Six street ends come together here. They feed people and wagons into the center. In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags, Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby buggies. Six ends of streets and no sleep for them all day. The people and wagons come and go, out and in. Triangles of banks and drug stores watch. The policemen whistle, the trolley cars bump : Wheels, wheels, feet, feet, all day. In the false dawn when the chickens blink And the east shakes a lazy baby toe at to-morrow, And the east fixes a pink half-eye this way, In the time when only one milk wagon crosses These three streets, these six street ends, It is the sleep time and they rest. The triangle banks and drug stores rest. The policeman is gone, his star and gun sleep. The owl car blutters along in a sleep-walk.

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Sandburg gives us a six-cornered city intersection as a living, restless place. All day it swallows and spills people, horses, wagons, shoppers, workers, and trolley cars; even the banks and drug stores seem to keep watch. The speaker feels the constant motion almost as a kind of sleeplessness—wheels, feet, whistles, bumps repeating without pause.

Then, in the pale false dawn, the mood softens. Only one milk wagon crosses, the policeman’s star and gun are asleep, and even the owl car drifts by half-dreaming. The speaker seems relieved by this quiet: the intersection finally rests, and the city feels almost tender, tired, and briefly at peace before the next day’s traffic begins.

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