Carl Sandburg

I am uploading a bunch of my music to put on our new IPOD. In the process I came across a CD that John and I bought on our honeymoon, not anticipating quite how cheesy it would be.

We went to Carl Sandburg's home one day during our trip (one of my favorite poets). The home is actually a goat farm because his wife was a prize goat breeder. He had one daughter who was mentally disabled and another who was divorced with children and they all lived in this home. So when he died, the wife sold the house and left immediately - I suppose to make enough money to support their daughters. In effect, the house was left almost exactly as it was the day he died: furniture, dishes, magazines, books and their memoribilia. It is now a historical museum, but some people live on the land and still keep goats there for visitors.

We like goats, so we got goat fudge and goat cheese. We also bought Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories for our future kids. And we got this CD.

It is some of his love poems set to music. Now Chara once gave me some of his children's poems turned into songs, and they are marvelous. So I expected something similar. But instead it is this sort of eerie flute and strings with a man reading poems in a breathy tone. I don't mean to put it down, but there is a bit of a cheese factor. Ah, well.

Anyway, I really do love some of the poems. And with our anniversary coming up, i thought I would post a poem for John.


Explanation of Love

There is a place where love begins and a place where love ends,

There is a touch of two hands that foils all dictionaries.

There is a look of eyes fierce as a big Bethlehem open
hearth furnace or a little green-fire acetylene torch.

There are single careless bywords
portentous as a big bend in the Mississippi River.

Hands, eyes, bywords - out of these
love makes battlegrounds and workshops.

There is a pair of shoes love wears
and the coming is a mystery.

There is a warning love sends
and the cost of it never written till long afterward.

There are explanations of love in all languages
and not one found wiser than this:

There is a place where love begins, and love ends
- and love asks nothing.