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Contemplative, Carl Sandburg, in English Clear filters

ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Jug

The shale and water thrown together so-so first of all, Then a potter's hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug ; out of the mud a mouth and a handle ; Slimpsy, loose and ready to fall at a touch, fire plays on it, slow fire coaxing all the water out of the shale mix. Dipped in glaze more fire plays on it till a molasses lava runs in waves, rises and retreats, a varnish of volcanoes. Take it now; out of mud now here is a mouth and handle; out of this now mothers will pour milk and maple syrup and cider, vinegar, apple juice, and sorghum. There is nothing proud about this ; only one out of many ; the potter's wheel slings them out and the fires harden them hours and hours thousands and
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Good Night

Many ways to spell good night. Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes. They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit. Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue and then go out. Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack mushrooming a white pillar. Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying in a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields to a razorback hill. It is easy to spell good night. Many ways to spell good night.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Shenandoah

In the Shenandoah Valley, one rider gray and one rider blue, and the sun on the riders wondering. Piled in the Shenandoah, riders blue and riders gray, piled with shovels, one and another, dust in the Shenandoah taking them quicker than mothers take children done with play. The blue nobody remembers, the gray nobody remembers, it's all old and old nowadays in the Shenandoah. And all is young, a butter of dandelions slung on the turf, climbing blue flowers of the wishing woodlands wondering: a midnight purple violet claims the sun among old heads, among old dreams of repeating heads of a rider blue and a rider gray in the Shenandoah.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

His Own Face Hidden

HOKUSAI'S portrait of himself Tells what his hat was like And his arms and legs. The only faces Are a river and a mountain And two laughing farmers. The smile of Hokusai is under his hat.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

How Yesterday Looked

The high horses of the sea broke their white riders On the walls that held and counted the hours The wind lasted. Two landbirds looked on and the north and the east Looked on and the wind poured cups of foam And the evening began. The old men in the shanties looked on and lit their Pipes and the young men spoke of the girls For a wild night like this. The south and the west looked on and the moon came When the wind went down and the sea was sorry And the singing slow. Ask how the sunset looked between the wind going Down and the moon coming up and I would struggle To tell the how of it. I give you fire here, I give you water, I give you
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Sand Scribblings

The wind stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin. A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel changes, the floor changes. The sandpipers, maybe they know. Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell. Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses. The sandpipers cheep " Here " and get away. Five of them fly and keep together flying. Night hair of some sea woman Curls on the sand when the sea leaves The salt tide without a good-by. Boxes on the beach are empty. Shake 'em and the nails loosen. They have been somewhere.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Women Washing Their Hair

They have painted and sung the women washing their hair, and the plaits and strands in the sun, and the golden combs and the combs of elephant tusks and the combs of buffalo horn and hoof. The sun has been good to women, drying their heads of hair as they stooped and shook their shoulders and framed their faces with copper and framed their eyes with dusk or chestnut. The rain has been good to women. If the rain should forget, if the rain left off for a year — the heads of women would wither, the copper, the dusk and chestnuts, go.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Hats

HATS, where do you belong? what is under you? On the rim of a skyscraper's forehead I looked down and saw : hats : fifty thousand hats: Swarming with a noise of bees and sheep, cattle and waterfalls, Stopping with a silence of sea grass, a silence of prairie corn. Hats: tell me your high hopes.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

People With Proud Chins

I TELL them where the wind comes from, Where the music goes when the fiddle is in the box. Kids — I saw one with a proud chin, a sleepyhead, And the moonline creeping white on her pillow. I have seen their heads in the starlight And their proud chins marching in a mist of stars. They are the only people I never lie to. I give them honest answers, Answers shrewd as the circles of white on brown chestnuts.
ContemplativeCarl Sandburg

Sandpipers

Ten miles of flat land along the sea. Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers — the script of their feet is on the sea shingles — they write in the morning, it is gone at noon — they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper's wire legs and feet.

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