Visit to Carl Sandburg's Home

I woke up this morning and sipped a cup of coffee while I read the first page of a book by one of my favorite authors that I knew I would love before I opened the cover. I got to wear my blue jeans and my sandals, and think about whatever I wanted. I love summer. I hear others echoing my thoughts today. They mention relief, freedom and joy (though our conversation, oddly, keeps drifting back to our students, our teaching, and our past classes). I began to journal, excited that I could think about whatever I wanted...but what?

I found myself planning my first day of the 08 school year. Yet another page of my journal littered with plans instead of reflection. I get excited about planning and improving my teaching. I like to think about the promise of the next day of school, the next year. But the driving force of my obsessive planning is guilt. I get excited about the books I will read, the places I will go, the relaxation I will have taking care of only myself- and then I think of my students. I think of Sam's cramped 101 degree apartment with no air conditioning and no car. There are so many like him: with no free lunch, no vacations, and no gas money. The disparity between my circumstances and those of my students is highlighted by all the opportunities I have. I never feel like I do enough to begin to meet the needs of my students.

I know my guilt is a waste of time and opportunity. I am excited about a summer of freedom to think, to rediscover myself as a writer and not just a teacher of writing, but now that I have the freedom to think I have to figure out what it is I want to think on. What matters? What will make my teaching life changing instead of just affective? What will make my writing more than just frivolous scribbles? What can I do to close the gaps between the opportunity I see in the world and the walls of limitations my students often don't see beyond?

I see the angst of the disparity I feel echoed in Sandburg's work. Living in a former slave owner/factory owner's grand home in the segregated south, he wrote to foster equality and human rights. I wonder if he felt the irony of his privilege against the backdrop of his causes.
I was so confused by Sandburg's poems upon my first readings: why was the obvious delight of nature is juxtaposed with complex, barely articulated questions that nature asks or that the speaker asks of nature. For example, in "Bluebird, what do you feed on?" the speaker pleads, "Bluebird we come to you for facts,/ for valuable/ Information, for secret reports./ Bluebird, tell us, what do you feed on?" In "Stars" the speaker laments, "Stars are so far away they never speak when spoken to." The beauty of nature at Sandburg's home, which inspired many of his poems, is palpable. So are the questions the beauty raises. Why am I privileged enough to see these miracles? What message is hidden in the beauty? Now I see that Sandburg worked to capture these questions, if not the answers in his poetry.
So, 'enough feeling guilty, look for the answers' I thought today as the birds' songs and the waterfall's hum called me to trust in a peace and order larger than my own abilities and limitations, 'be like Sandburg.'



Early Summer


Slip off my sandals.
Drizzle my toes in dew.
Run further, till my breathing drowns out the highway's hum.


Uncork my fermenting brain to fizz, bubble, and remember
Night swims, burning pavement, sopping car seats,
Peach pits and horse rides.


Reapply sunscreen.
Peel by the pool.
Let my hair air dry frizzy.


Listen in the lull of conversation.
Look for the micro-metaphors, not cliche.

Slipping off my sandals,

I wiggle my toes.
Standing on holy ground,
I search for burning bushes.