Poem for Tuesday and Son's New Car

Poems Done On A Late Night Car
By Carl Sandburg

I. CHICKENS

I am The Great White Way of the city:
When you ask what is my desire, I answer:
"Girls fresh as country wild flowers,
With young faces tired of the cows and barns,
Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries,
Slender supple girls with shapely legs,
Lure in the arch of their little shoulders
And wisdom from the prairies to cry only softly at
the ashes of my mysteries."

II. USED UP

Lines based on certain regrets that come with rumination
upon the painted faces of women on
North Clark Street, Chicago

Roses,
Red roses,
Crushed
In the rain and wind
Like mouths of women
Beaten by the fists of
Men using them.
O little roses
And broken leaves
And petal wisps:
You that so flung your crimson
To the sun
Only yesterday.

III. HOME

Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry
in the darkness.

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The big event of our Monday was going with Adam to pick up his first car, which he bought all by himself: a 2003 Hyundai Sonata that he basically needs to keep running for five months to get him to his NASA internship from his apartment in College Park and back again, plus some visits to Bethesda and downtown for his part-time programming job and weekend road trips (he is hoping it will survive his final year in college next year as well).

We went to Minerva for Indian food before getting the car and to Duck Donuts after we had also gone out to get an ice scraper and jumper cables for Adam, since we have snow in the forecast. After he packed up and headed for College Park, we had bagels for dinner since we were still kind of full from lunch, then watched Supergirl; we tried to watch last night's Madam Secretary too, but CBS had a freaking paywall so we caught up on The Gifted instead!


With son before he headed off to go climbing with a friend in College Park.


Here he is with his father and his new car!


We met this dog in the reception area of the car dealership while he was signing papers.


After bringing the car home, we stopped for donuts.


Son did not want his picture taken but happened to be standing there when I was trying to take a pic, since we haven't been in a Duck Donuts since we last went to the Outer Banks.


Son took this picture of Effie. I made him send it to me.


Here he is taking the car for his first trip in it around the Beltway.