Today,
a day to be thankful for many reasons, the least of which for friends and
family, good health, dignified and stimulating work, we celebrate
Thanksgiving. This is truly an American
holiday. Over the years I’ve posted
various types of Thanksgiving messages. I’ve
posted George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation that is the root of the holiday, and I posted a heartfelt statement of
gratitude to all my blogger friends, past and present. I’ve posted on St. Paul’s prayer of gratitude
at the beginning of his epistle to the Romans, and I posted on part of the Eucharistic prayer of thankfulness in the Mass. There are other posts. If you type in “Thanksgiving” in the little
search box in the upper left of the blog you will pull them all up.
This
year I wanted to post a Thanksgiving poem, and there are quite a few out there
to select from. It was hard choosing but
I chose one that from the title one would not guess is on Thanksgiving. It’s “Fire Dreams” by Carl Sandburg.
At
the time of Carl Sandburg’s death (1967) the United States was 191 years old if
you consider 1776 as the birthdate of the country. Sandberg lived to 89 years old, and so had
lived through nearly half of the country’s lifespan. And since he was born in 1878, he lived
through the formative years of the United States entering the world stage and
becoming the leader of the free world.
Sandburg saw the nation’s urbanization, the Spanish-American War, the
two World Wars, the Great Depression, the African-American migration, the
development of American music in Broadway musicals, Jazz, Gospel, and Rock and
Roll, and so much more. He was a distinctly
American poet and, perhaps more specifically, a Midwestern and Chicagoan
poet. He won numerous awards in his
lifetime and along with Robert Frost may have been seen as the two Great
American poets in their day. Sandburg’s
poetry does not have the modernist sensibility, and so perhaps his reputation
has come down after his life. Still his
poetry speaks to us simply and directly, especially as Americans.
Fire Dreams
By Carl Sandburg
(Written to be read
aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)
I remember here by the
fire,
In the flickering reds
and saffrons,
They came in a ramshackle
tub,
Pilgrims in tall hats,
Pilgrims of iron jaws,
Drifting by weeks on
beaten seas,
And the random chapters
say
They were glad and sang
to God.
And so
Since the iron-jawed men
sat down
And said, “Thanks, O
God,”
For life and soup and a
little less
Than a hobo handout
to-day,
Since gray winds blew
gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,
Since the iron-jawed men
sang “Thanks, O God,”
You and I, O Child of the
West,
Remember more than ever
November and the hunter’s
moon,
November and the
yellow-spotted hills.
And so
In the name of the
iron-jawed men
I will stand up and say
yes till the finish is come and gone.
God of all broken hearts,
empty hands, sleeping soldiers,
God of all star-flung
beaches of night sky,
I and my love-child stand
up together to-day and sing: “Thanks, O God.”
It
should be noted, the poem has a proem, an introductory line that sets the tone for the poem. The proem stipulates the poem should be read
aloud on Thanksgiving Day.
The
poem body is in three stanzas of varying number of lines. The first stanza has eight lines, the second
eleven, and the third six. The lines are
in free verse of varying length, what I would call Whitman-esk lines. Sandburg seems to have an affinity for Walt
Whitman. This poem is a very akin to Walt
Whitman.
The
situation is set in the first two lines: the poet sitting by a fire recalling the
pilgrims of Plymouth Rock. The poet
imagines their ship which he refers to as a “ramshackle tub,” imagines the
pilgrims in “tall hats,” and repeated three more times in the poem as “iron-jawed.” Significantly, the poet imagines the pilgrims
thanking God for the success of their voyage.
This is from where the tile, “Fire Dreams” comes from. The poet is by what I imagine is a campfire
(or perhaps a fireplace) and has images of the pilgrims come to mind.
In
the second stanza the poet imagines the initial assistance the pilgrims
received as they settled in the country.
The lines that imagines the assistance is superb: “For life and soup and
a little less/Than a hobo handout to-day.”
Twice in the stanza they thank God and twice their “iron-jaw”
disposition is referenced. Interestingly,
never in the poem does Sandburg allude to the Native-Americans who were the
complementary half to the pilgrims’ feast.
The poet mentions his “Child of the West,” which I take is his child,
and tells the child to remember the month of November and its association with the
hunt that will provide for Thanksgiving,
The
third stanza brings the memory to a climax where the poet and his child stand
up and “in the name of the iron-jawed men” and praise God in gratitude. The pilgrim’s “iron-jaw” is referenced once
more.
Several
poeticisms should be highlighted. First
the imagery of the pilgrims stands in the foreground—the imagery of their hats,
their sea voyage, their ship, Plymouth Rock, and the weather, and of course the
pilgrim’s iron-jaw.” The humility of
accepting a “hobo” meal is also visually distinct. In contrast, the image of the poet and his
child by the fire stands in the background, and it seems that in the third
stanza when the poet and child are ready to express their thanks they step into
the foreground to take center stage.
That is a nice effect.
Second,
the language of the poem is very American.
Hobo is an Americanism which seems to date to 1889. The poem was published in 1918, about thirty
years from when “hobo” was coined. “Iron-jaw”
is another Americanism and coined a little earlier than “hobo.” Iron-jaw was coined in 1880. While “pilgrim” and “ramshackle” are not
Americanism, they have become much more frequent in the American lexicon. They do feel American.
Finally
the “s” sound predominates the poem, and it does so to great effect. We see and hear if spoken aloud the “s”
alliteration of the words: saffrons, seas, soup, since, sleet, sang, says,
sleep, so, spotted, star, and I think I may have missed a few still. That is quite an amount in such a short
poem. Even more remarkable is the
frequent ending of the words with the “s” sound. Notice all the plurals: pilgrims, saffron,
reds, seas, jaws, and so on. I’m not
going to list them all but Sandburg seems to go out of his way to make words
plural. He also chooses words that
naturally end with “s”: less, West, and most importantly, “Thanks.” The cumulative effect of all the “s” sounds prepares
the listener for the climactic moment when the poet and child “stand” together
and “sing,” “Thanks, O God.” All those “s”
prior to the last line prepare the reader/listener for the poet to stand into
the foreground and repeat the words from the pilgrim’s lips.
What
a wonderful poem.
Happy
Thanksgiving all!
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