Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Wedding Invitation

Flowers & Wheat in a Mason Jar
As I painted this most recent flowers in a mason jar invitation, I was thinking about the beauty that wheat brings to the Midwest.  The image of gently rolling golden fields is fantastically familiar.  It also called to mind the first line of Carl Sandburg's Chicago poem, " HOG Butcher for the World,
 Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
 Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
 Stormy, husky, brawling,
 City of the Big Shoulders..."  That poem so delights me, I thought I would share it here. 
CHICAGO
Carl Sandburg
     HOG Butcher for the World,
     
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
     
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
     
Stormy, husky, brawling,
     
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
     
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
     
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
     
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
     
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
     
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
     
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
     
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
     
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
     
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
 job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
     
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
     
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
          
Bareheaded,
          
Shoveling,
          
Wrecking,
          
Planning,
          
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
     
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
     
man laughs,
 Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
     
never lost a battle,
 Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
     
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
               
Laughing! 
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
     
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
     
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
     
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
What does the image of wheat call to mind for you?
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