Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), "Chicago Poems" (1916), "Corn Huskers" (1919), "The Chicago Race Riot" (1919), "The People, Yes" (1936) - ....

Last update: 12/27/2022


"They die at noon and midnight, they are born in the morning, the afternoon, and the river goes on and the foamflecks of the river go on The same great river carries along its foamflecks of poobahs and plain people They and their houses go down the river, houses built for use or show down the crumbling stream they go— cabins, frame lumber cottages, installment bungalows, mail order residences picked from a catalogue, mansions whose windows and gables laughed a nvalry, down the same nver they all go A few stand, a few last longer than others while time and the ram, water and air and time have their way, morning by morning the little birds on the window-sills "Whither goest thou? whither and whither?" - Précédant Steinbeck pour défendre la même cause, Carl Sandburg, après avoir écrit en 1920 "Smoke and Street", remporte trois prix Pulitzer, en 1919 pour son recueil "Corn Huskers" (Egreneurs de maïs), en 1940 pour sa biographie d'Abraham Lincoln, "Abraham Lincoln : The War Years", et en 1951 pour son recueil "The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg". Mais l'oeuvre la plus marquante, et aujourd'hui tant méconnue, reste "The People, Yes" (1936). Considéré comme l'équivalent poétique absolu de "The Grapes of Wrath" de Steinbeck, c'est une oeuvre singulière, vibrante, incantatoire, oeuvre d'un grand poète du peuple, de ses colères comme de ses enthousiasmes. Journaliste, militant, il a le sens du détail, connaît le "peuple" tant dans ce qu'il vit que dans ce qu'il dit. Poète, il traduit en langage ses observations, en ajuste la mise en scène et les confrontent à ce que disent les sphères dominantes de la société. Il y a bien une opposition de classes sociales, des dominés qui vivent et expriment ce qu'ils vivent comme ils peuvent, et des dominants qui les jugent. Sandburg nous parle donc du peuple, le rythme est en effet incantatoire, progressant au fur et à mesure des éléments qu'il aborde, le peuple est une réalité bien vivante, diverse, contradictoire, paradoxale, portée par un instinct de survie qui laisse augurer autant de compromissions que d'excès, mais c'est un peuple qui forge ce monde et qu'il veut rendre visible, à qui il entend donner un langage. Et plus encore, dans la méthode, il ne cesse de confronter la réalité de ce peuple et de sa vie, et l'enfermement qu'il subit tant tant au niveau économique, politique et institutionnel qu'au niveau du langage des dominants qui charrie à leur encontre tant de stéréotypes - et non sans un certain cynisme toujours actuel. Mais ce "ce peuple si souvent endormi, fatigué, énigmatique" (so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic) coninuera à vivre (will live on) ...

I AM THE PEOPLE, THE MOB

BY CARL SANDBURG (Other Days, 1900-1910)

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.


Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Fils d'immigrants suédois, Carl August Sandburg, né à Galesburg (Illinois), est principalement connu pour ses "Chicago Poems", qui lui valurent la célébrité dès 1916, et pour sa passion pour l'histoire orale et chantée des États-Unis populaires (The American Songbag, 1927 ; The New American Songbag, 1950). Après avoir quitté l'école à treize ans pour travailler à divers emplois manuels, il voyagea dans l'Ouest avant de rentrer en Illinois comme peintre en bâtiment. Soldat volontaire lors de la guerre hispano-américaine de 1898, il reprit ensuite ses études, comme salarié, à Lombard College. En 1904, il publie un premier recueil, "In Reckless Ecstasy". Il épouse en 1908 Lillian Steichen et s'intéresse un temps aux imagistes et à l'avant-garde plasticienne.  Sa carrière militante débute en 1910, lorsqu'il devient secrétaire du maire socialiste de Milwaukee. En 1912, il s'installe à Chicago et en 1916 la publication de ses "Chicago Poems" le fait connaître. "Poetry is a pack-sack of invisible keepsakes, écrira-t-il en 1928. Poetry is a sky dark with a wild-duck migration. Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment."

Pénétré des valeurs du Middle West et hostile à tout académisme, Sandburg met au service de sa défense et de son illustration des plus humbles, cet art poétique qui sait accumuler les mille et un détails du quotidien de leur vie ordinaire, de leur colères ou de leurs enthousiasmes. On a beau émettre quelques réserves à propos de la force et du débit de ses grands vers libres, l'effet est magique, la singularité de sa conviction profonde. "It was Sandburg who “put America on paper,” writing the American idiom, speaking to the masses, who held no terror for him..."

 

CHICAGO (Chicago Poems)

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.

 

MASSES (Chicago Poems)

AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and red crag and was amazed;

On the beach where the long push under the endless tide maneuvers, I stood silent;

Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant over the horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts. Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and work- ers, mothers lifting their children—these all I

touched, and felt the solemn thrill of them.

And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions of the Poor, patient and toiling; more patient than crags, tides, and stars; innumerable, patient as the darkness of night—and all broken, humble ruins of nations.

 

"The Chicago Race Riot" (1919)

Devenu journaliste, Sandburg écrit les éditoriaux du Daily News de Chicago et va couvrir pendant l' "été rouge" de 1919 les émeutes raciales qui enflamme la ville. Le début de l'année avait vu éclater de telles émeutes à Memphis (Tennessee), Charleston (Caroline du Sud) et Philadelphie, si bien que son éditeur envoya Sandburg osculter des quartiers pauvres de Chicago, et celui-ci prévoyait un affrontement inévitable entre les rêves et les peurs. C'est que les Afro-américains du Sud étaient venus à Chicago avec l'espoir d'opportunités qui leur avaient longtemps été refusées. "A door once inscribed, ‘No hope,’ now says, ‘There is hope", écrivit-il. Mais là où les Afro-américains voyaient des opportunités, les Blancs de Chicago voyaient une menace. "Here and there, slowly and by degrees, the line of color discrimination breaks", écrivit Sandburg peu avant que les émeutes ne soient déclenchées sur une plage du South Side. Mais alors que l'Illinois ne pratiquait pas la ségrégation raciale dans les établissements publics (comme le faisaient les États du Sud jusque dans les années 1960), les plages publiques de Chicago étaient clairement ségréguées.

Le 27 juillet 1919, un adolescent Afro-américains, Eugene Williams, franchissait une ligne imaginaire divisant les races alors qu'il faisait du rafting sur le lac Michigan. Des Blancs lui ont jeté des pierres, un policier a refusé d'intervenir et Williams s'est noyé. Alors que le corps de Williams était déplacé, d'autres pierres ont été lancées par des Blancs et des Noirs, et la mêlée s'est étendue à la Black Belt voisine, où vivait la majorité des Afro-américains de Chicago. Ce fut cinq jours d'émeutes. Avant que le calme ne puisse être rétabli par 6 000 soldats de la Garde nationale, 23 Afro-américains et 15 Blancs furent tués. Des affrontements ont éclaté à l'hôpital Provident, où des blessés, noirs et blancs, étaient soignés, et des incendies criminels ont fait 2 000 sans-abri.

Le 3 août, l'émeute était terminée, et les explications ont commencé.

"In any American city where the racial situation is critical at this moment, the radical and active factors probably are (1) housing, (2) politics and war psychology, and (3) organization of labor", écrira Sandburg, tandis que les dirigeants municipaux affirmaient que la ségrégation n'était pas la cause mais la solution du problème et proposèrent d'établir des zones séparées pour "the residence of only colored or white persons".

Arpentant la Black Belt,  Sandburg conteste ce point de vue. Il rapporte que "In barber shop windows and in cigar stores and haberdasheries are helmets, rifles, cartridges, canteens and haversacks and photographs of negro regiments that were sent to France". La Black Belt n'a-t-elle pas envoyé 1 850 conscrits pour combattre pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, pendant que président Woodrow Wilson proclamait qu'il s'agissait d'une guerre "to make the world safe for democracy". Il est donc clair que ces hommes, parfaitement conscients des problèmes posés, ne peuvent qu'en venir à se poser les questions suivantes: "What are we ready to die for? Why do we live? What is democracy? What is the meaning of freedom; of self-determination?". Toutes les tentatives de ségrégation n'apportent que discorde et ressentiment. Les articles de Sandburg attirèrent l'attention, un livre fut publié. Et lorsqu'on s'interrogea sur la juste compréhension qu'il avait eu à propos de ses émeutes, il répondit par une boutade lors de la publication de son anthologie de 1916 "Chicago Poems" : "Here is the difference between Dante, Milton and me. They wrote about hell but never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years" (Voici la différence entre Dante, Milton et moi. Ils ont écrit sur l'enfer mais n'ont jamais vu l'endroit. J'ai écrit sur Chicago après avoir regardé la ville pendant des années et des années). Par la suite, il collabora à de nombreuses publications, suivant de près la vie syndicale et politique. Son autobiographie (Always the Young Strangers, 1953) retracera avec humour cette partie de sa vie...

 

Son engagement politique aux côtés du Parti social démocrate et l'activité journalistique de toute sa vie révèlent son ardeur militante. Se succèdent "Cornhuskers" (1918), "Smoke and Steel" (1920), "Slabs of the Sunburnt West" (1922), "Good Morning America" (1928), "The People, Yes" (1936).  En 1926 débute son long travail sur Abraham Lincoln (dont il composa une biographie remarquée en six volumes (The Prairie Years, 1926 et The War Years, 1939)qui exprime sa vénération pour ce héros populaire. Actif sur de trop nombreux fronts, Sandburg ne produira guère de recueil de poèmes après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Un roman, "Remembrance Rock" (1948), suit son installation à Connemara Farm, en Caroline du Nord, en 1945. Les honneurs et diverses reconnaissances s'accumulent, prix Pulitzer de poésie en 1951, il reçoit des mains du président Johnson en 1964 la médaille présidentielle de la Liberté. Il meurt chez lui, à Flat Rock, le 22 juillet 1967...

 


Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes" (1936)

On l'a dit, c'est l'équivalent poétique de "The Grapes of Wrath" de Steinbeck, mais il l'a précédé avec un souffle et une générosité indéniables. Le poète sait aller au profond de ce qu'il voit et de ce qu'il entend, et sa démarche est celle d'une interrogation sans limite qui, sous les images, le symbole, le langage apparent, tente de débusquer  les non-dits et lieux-communs. Il tourne autour de son sujet et en explore toutes les facettes, fussent-elles dans l'ombre. Ainsi, évoque-t-il son approche de Lincoln, symbole intangible : "He was a mystery, in smoke and flags saying yes to the smoke, yes to the flags, yes to the paradoxes of democracy, yes to the hopes of government of the people by the people for the people, no to debauchery of the public mind, no to personal malice nursed and fed, yes to the Constitution when a help, no to the Constitution when a hindrance, yes to man as a struggler amid illusions, each man fated to answer for himself Which of the faiths and illusions of mankind must I choose for my own sustaining light to bring me beyond the present wilderness?". 

L'emprise du langage et de la communication entre les êtres humains est omniprésente. Tout débute ici à l'image du mythe de la Tour de Babel et de l'incompréhension jetée entre les humains par confusion des langages : "When shall we all speak the same language? And do we want to have all the same language?..."

Des quatre coins de la terre, des endroits où les vents  et les brouillards naissent avec des enfants de brume,  des hommes de grande taille venant de hautes pentes rocheuses sont venus et des hommes endormis des vallées endormies, leurs femmes grandes, leurs femmes endormies,  avec des paquets et des biens, avec des petits qui babillent : "Où allons-nous maintenant ?  quoi ensuite ?" - Le peuple de la terre, la famille de l'homme, voulaient ériger quelque chose dont ils puissent être légitimement fiers...

1

From the four corners of the earth, 

from corners lashed in wind 

and bitten with ram and fire, 

from places where the winds begin 

and fogs are born with mist children, 

tall men from tall rocky slopes came

and sleepy men from sleepy valleys, 

their women tall, their women sleepy, 

with bundles and belongings, 

with little ones babbling, ''Where to now? 

what next?"

The people of the earth, the family of man, 

wanted to put up something proud to look at, 

a tower from the flat land of earth 

on up through the ceiling into the top of the sky

And the big job got going,

the caissons and pilings sunk,

floors, walls and winding staircases

aimed at the stars high over,

aimed to go beyond the ladders of the moon

And God Almighty could have struck them dead 

or smitten them deaf and dumb

And God was a whimsical fixer 

God was an understanding Boss 

with another plan in mind,

And suddenly shuffled all the languages, 

changed the tongues of men 

so they all talked different

And the masons couldn't get what the hodcarners said,

The helpers handed the carpenters the wrong tools.

Five hundred ways to say, "Who are you?"

Changed ways of asking, "Where do we go from here?"

Or of saying, "Being bom is only the beginning,"

Or, "Would you just as soon sing as make that noise"?"

Or, "What you don't know won't hurt you "

And the material-and-supply men started disputes 

With the hauling gangs and the building trades 

And the architects tore their hair over the blueprints 

And the brickmakers and the mule skinners talked back 

To the straw bosses who talked back to the superintendents 

And the signals got mixed, the men who shovelled the bucket 

Hooted the hoisting men— and the job was wrecked

Some called it the Tower of Babel job 

And the people gave it many other names 

The wreck of it stood as a skull and a ghost, 

a memorandum hardly begun, 

swaying and sagging in tall hostile winds, 

held up by slow friendly winds

 

2

From Illinois and Indiana came a later myth

Of all the people in the world at Howdeehow

For the first time standing together

From six continents, seven seas, and several archipelagoes.

From points of land moved by wind and water

Out of where they used to be to where they are,

The people of the earth marched and travelled 

To gather on a great plain

At a given signal they would join in a shout.

So it was planned.

One grand hosannah, something worth listening to 

And they all listened 

The signal was given

And they all listened 

And the silence was beyond words 

They had come to listen, not to make a noise 

They wanted to hear 

So they all stood still and listened,

Everybody except a little old woman from Kalamazoo 

Who gave out a long slow wail over what she was missing 

because she was stone deaf

This is the tale of the Howdeehow powpow,

One of a thousand drolls the people tell of themselves, 

Of tall corn, of wide rivers, of big snakes,

Of giants and dwarfs, heroes and clowns,

Grown in the soil of the mass of the people

(...)

 


On dit que la notion de peuple est un mythe, une abstraction, mais quel mythe mettriez-vous à la place du peuple, quelle abstraction échangeriez-vous contre celle-ci,  qui et qu'est-ce que le peuple ?, demande-t-on ce qu'est l'herbe ? ce qu'est le sel ? ce qu'est la mer ? ce qu'est le limon ? Et que voulait dire ce gouverneur de l'Alfalfaland : "Le peuple est une mule qui fera n'importe quoi"....

 

(17) "The people is a myth, an abstraction"

And what myth would you put in place 

of the people ?

And what abstraction would you exchange 

for this one?

And when has creative man not toiled 

deep in myth?

And who fights for a bellyful only and

where is any name worth remembering for anything else than the human abstraction woven through it with in- visible thongs?

"Precisely who and what is the people?"

Is this far off from asking what is grass? what is salt? what is the sea? what is loam?

What are seeds? what is a crop? why must mammals have milk soon as born or they perish?

And how did that alfalfaland governor mean it "The common people is a mule that will do anything you say except stay hitched"?

 

Les gens, oui, les gens. Tous ceux qui ont reçu une lettre aujourd'hui Et ceux que le facteur a manqués. Les femmes aux fourneaux préparant les repas, dans un coin couture réparant, dans un sous-sol faisant la lessive, la femme au foyer. Les femmes à l'usine s'occupant d'une machine à coudre, certaines d'entre elles étant le pilier de l'homme sans emploi à la maison, cuisinant, blanchissant. Les chercheurs d'emploi qui marchent dans la rue, les marcheurs vifs et enthousiastes, les somnambules à la dérive, les sans-abri sans espoir, Les marcheurs qui lisent les panneaux et s'arrêtent pour étudier les fenêtres, les panneaux et les fenêtres visant directement leurs yeux, leurs désirs, Les femmes qui entrent et sortent pour regarder et sentir, pour essayer, pour acheter et emporter, La foule des magasins, le tirage des journaux ...

 

(19) The people, yes, the people.

Everyone who got a letter today 

And those the mail-camer missed.

The women at the cookstoves preparing meals, 

in a sewing corner mending, in a basement laundering, woman the homemaker.

The women at the factory tending a stitching machine, some of them the mainstay of the jobless man at home cooking, laundering. Streetwalking jobhunters, walkers alive and keen, sleepwalkers drifting along, the stupefied and hopeless down-and-outs, the game fighters who will die fighting,

Walkers reading signs and stopping to study windows, the signs and windows aimed straight at their eyes, their wants,

Women in and out of doors to look and feel, to try on, to buy and take away, to order and have it charged and delivered, to pass by on account of price and conditions.

The shopping crowds, the newspaper circulation, the bystanders who witness parades, who meet the boat, the tram, who throng in wavehnes to a fire, an explosion, an accident— The people, yes—

Their shoe soles wearing holes in stone steps, their hands and gloves wearing soft niches in banisters of granite, two worn foot-tracks at the general-delivery window.

Driving their cars, stop and go, red light, green light, and the law of the traffic cop's fingers, on their way, loans and mortgages, margins to cover.

Payments on the car, the bungalow, the radio, the electric icebox, accumulated interest on loans for past payments, the writhing point of where the money will come from,

Crime thrown m their eyes from every angle, crimes against property and person, crime in the prints and films, crime as a lurking shadow ready to spring into reality, crime as a method and a technic.

Comedy as an offset to crime, the laughmakers, the odd numbers m the news and the movies, original clowns and imitators, and in the best you never know what's coming next even when it's hokum.

And sports, how a muff in the seventh lost yesterday's game and now they are learning to hit Dazzy's fadeaway ball and did you hear how Foozly plowed through that line for a touchdown this afternoon?

And daily the death toll of the speed wagons, a cripple a minute in fenders, wheels, steel and glass splinters, a stammering witness before a coroner's jury, 'It happened sa sudden I don't know what happened "

And in the air a decree life is a gamble, take a chance, you pick a number and see what you get anything can happen in this sweepstakes around the corner may be prosperity or the worst depression yet who knows? nobody you pick a number, you draw a card, you shoot the bones

In the poolrooms the young hear, "'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, If the women don't get you then the whiskey must,” and in the churches, "We walk by faith and not by sight,” Often among themselves in their sessions of can- dor the young saying, "Everything's a racket, only the gyp artists get by ”

And over and beyond the latest crime or comedy always that relentless meal ticket saying dont-lose-me, hold your ]ob, glue your mind on that ]ob or when your last nickel is gone you live on your folks or sign for relief,

And the terror of these unknowns is a circle of black ghosts holding men and women in toil and danger, and sometimes shame, beyond the dreams of their blossom days, the days before they set out on their own 

What is this "occupational disease” we hear about? It's a sickness that breaks your health on account of the work you're in That's all Another kind of work and you'd have been as good as any of them You'd have been your old self

And what is this "hazardous occupation”? Why that's where you're liable to break your neck or get smashed on the job so you're no good on that job any more and that's why you can't get any regular life insurance so long as you're on that job

These are heroes then— among the plain people— Heroes, did you say? And why not? They give all they've got and ask no questions and take what comes and what more do you want?

On the street you can see them any time, some with jobs, some nothing doing, here a down- and-out, there a game fighter who will die fighting

 

Et qui parlera ou peut parler au nom du peuple ? Qui sait ce qu'est ce "peuple"? Quelle est la ligne de démarcation entre la crédulité d'un côté et, de l'autre, les illusions de ceux qui tentent de tracer leur route en fonction de ce qu'ils espèrent et croient être au-delà de l'horizon ? ..

 

(20) Who shall speak for the people?

Who knows the works from A to Z so he can say, “I know what the people want"? Who is this phenom? where did he come from?

When have the people been half as rotten as what the panderers to the people dangle before crowds?

When has the fiber of the people been as shoddy as what is sold to the people by cheaters?

What is it the panderers and cheaters of the people play with and trade on?

The credulity of believers and hopers— and when is a heart less of a heart because of belief and hope?

What is the tremulous line between credulity on the one side and on the other the hypotheses and illusions of inventors, discoverers, navigators who chart their course by what they hope and believe is beyond the horizon?

What is a stratosphere fourteen miles from the earth or a sunken glass house on the sea-bottom amid fish and feather-stars unless a bet that man can shove on beyond yesterday's record of man the hoper, the believer?

How like a sublime sanctuary of human credulity is that room where amid tubes, globes and retorts they shoot with heavy hearts of hydrogen and batter with fire-streams of power hop- ing to smash the atom

Who are these bipeds trying to take apart the atom and isolate its electrons and make it tell why it is what it is? Behevers and hopers

Let the work of their fathers and elders brothers be cancelled this instant  and what would happen?

Nothing - only every tool, bus, car, light, torch, bulb, print film, instrument or communication depending forits life on electrodynamic power would stop and stand dumb and silent."

 

(21) Who knows the people, the migratory harvest hands and berry pickers, the loan shark victims, the installment house wolves.

The jugglers in sand and wood who smooth their hands along the mold that casts the frame of your motorcar engine.

The metal polishers, solderers, and paint-spray hands who put the final finish on the car.

The riveters and bolt-catchers, the cowboys of the air m the big city, the cowhands of the Great Plains, the ex-convicts, the bellhops, redcaps, lavatory men—

The union organizer with his list of those ready to join and those hesi- tating, the secret paid informers who report every move toward organizing.

The house-to-house canvassers, the doorbell ringers, the good-morning- have-you-heard boys, the strike pickets, the strikebreakers, the hired sluggers, the ambulance crew, the ambulance chasers, the picture chasers, the meter readers, the oysterboat crews, the harborhght tenders—

who knows the people?

Who knows this from pit to peak? The people, yes

 

(24) Who shall speak for the people? who has the answers? where is the sure interpreter^ who knows what to say?

Who can write the music jazz-classical smokestacks-geramums hyacinths-biscuits now whispering easy now boom doom crashing angular now tough monotonous tom tom 

Who has enough split-seconds and slow sea-tides?

The ships of the sea and the mists of night and the sheen of old battlefields and the moon on the city rubbish dumps belong to the people 

The crops this year, last and next year, and the winds and frosts in many orchards and tomato gardens, are listed in the people's acquaintance Horses and wagons, trucks and tractors, from the shouting cities to the sleeping prairies, from worn pavements to mountain mule paths, the people have strange possessions 

The plow and the hammer, the knife and the shovel, the planting hoe and the reaping sickle, everywhere these are the people's possessions by right of use

Their handles are smoothed to the grain of the wood by the enclosing thumbs and fingers of familiar hands.

Mamtenance-of-way men in a Tennessee gang singing, "If I die a railroad man put a pick and shovel at my head and my feet and a nine-pound hammer in my hand,"

Larry, the Kansas section boss, on his dying bed asking for one last look at the old hand-car,

His men saying in the coffin on his chest he should by rights have the spike maul, the gauge and the old claw-bar

The early morning in the fields, the brown thrush warbling and the imitations of the catbird, the neverending combat with pest and destroyer, the chores of feeding and watching, seedtime and harvest.

The clocking of the months toward a birthing day, the newly dropped calves and the finished steers loaded in stock-cars for market, the gamble on what we’ll get tomorrow for what we put m today—

These are belongings of the people, dusty with the dust of earth, merciless as sudden hog cholera, hopeful as a rainwashed hill of moonlit pines...

 

Bruit et au ronronnement de l'acier et des moteurs, des rues et des gares, tarifs, usagers, avec leurs pièces de cinq cents et de dix cents, qui vont et reviennent, reviennent et repartent, un sur mille se dit  "Où vas-tu ? ", "Peut-être que je ne sais pas grand-chose, mais ce que je sais, je le sais pour battre l'enfer", et ils ont rassemblé des clés de sagesse et ils en parlent dans le bus, l'ascenseur et le métro, les fameux éléments de langage que l'on se passe et se repasse, dans sa tête en boucle, et de l'un à l'autre, pour tenter de survivre au moins un minimum de compréhension mutuelle d'une réalité qui en fait s'échappe de toute part, des lieux communs que l'on prend en l'état, parce qu'on ne peut aller plus loin, "Le pénitencier, c'est pour apprendre à mieux se comporter, à réfléchir", "Un comique fait de l'humour et est payé pour faire rire s'il le peut", "Shakespeare est le plus grand écrivain de tous", "La police maintient l'ordre et vous arrête à moins que vous n'ayez un coup de pouce". "Le mouchoir, c'est pour porter dans la poche et se moucher avec et attacher des pièces de 5 cents dans le coin pour la voiture et l'église", "L'économie, c'est quand on économise sans être avare", "Les banques gardent l'argent quand il vous en reste. Elles ne laissent personne d'autre l'avoir et elles vous laissent retirer de l'argent si vous payez et faites ce qui est normal", "La Constitution dit comment le gouvernement fonctionne. C'est un document de Washington pour les avocats", "La guerre, c'est quand deux nations s'affrontent, en tuant le plus possible pour le gouvernement", "Le président c'est comme un roi quatre ans à signer des lois à la Maison Blanche et à rencontrer des gens. Il peut faire ce qu'il veut à moins qu'on l'en empêche", "La pauvreté, c'est quand tu travailles dur, que tu vis à peu de frais et que tu ne peux pas payer, que tu te poses des questions et que tu ne sais pas où tu en es", "La liberté, c'est quand tu es libre de faire ce que tu veux et que la police ne t'arrête jamais si elle sait qui tu es et que tu as le bon ticket", "Le passé est loin et tu ne peux pas y toucher. Demain, aujourd'hui sera hier et appartiendra au passé, comme ça, tu vois ?"...

C'est toute l'ingéniosité de l'esprit humain qui permet de faire passer le temps à des millions de personnes qui gardent ainsi un semblant de sérénité au milieu de l'implacable processus socio-politico-économique qui entraîne le monde, et pour arracher leur nourriture de cette vaste emprise organisée contre eux. Et c'est ainsi, chaque jour, que la mort et le désespoir sont repoussés par ceux qui, dans les moments difficiles, savent comment et quand rire....

 

(61) "The nickels click off fares in the slot machines of the subway, the elevated "Fare, please,” say the bus conductors to millions every day of the week 

Riders they are, riders to work, to home, to fun, to grief, each nickel and dime audited and accounted for as current income payable for taxes, overhead, upkeep, rehabilitation, surplus, dividends, flimflam 

To the whang and purr of steel and motors, streets and stations, the fares, the riders, with nickels and dimes, go and return, return and go One in a thousand says, "Whither goest thou?” but mostly "Where you going?"

Mostly they are in accord with the Minnesota Swede 

"Maybe I don't know so much but what I do know I know to beat hell ” 

Like tools tested for grinding and cutting and durability, they have gath- ered them clews of wisdom and they talk things over in the bus, the elevated, the subway

"The penitentiary is to leam to behave better, to think things over, it IS lonesome ”

"A comedian acts funny and gets paid to make people laugh if he can ”

"Shakespeare is the greatest wnter of them all, a dead Englishman and you have to read him m high school or you don't pass ” 

"The police pass examinations and then get a club and a star to show who they are They keep order and arrest you unless you got a pull ”

"Handkerchief is to carry m the pocket and blow your nose with and tie nickels in the corner of for carfare and church ”

"Economy is when you save without being stingy,”

"Banks keep money when you have some left over. They let nobody else get it And they let you take money out if you pay for it and do what is regular.”

"The Constitution tells how the government runs It is a paper in Washington for the lawyers ''

“War is when two nations go to it killing as many as you can for the government ”

“The army is men m uniforms, they go away and fight till they come back or you hear from them ''

“The president is the same as a king four years signing bills in the White House and meeting people He can do whatever he wants to unless he is stopped ''

“Oath is what you swear to in court that you will tell everything God help you and hold nothing back no matter what ''

“Poverty is when you work hard, live cheap and can't pay up, you figure and you can't tell where you're coming out at "

“Liberty is when you are free to do what you want to do and the police never arrest you if they know who you are and you got the right ticket "

“The past is long ago and you can't touch it Tomorrow today will be yesterday and belong in the past, like that, see?"

The ingenuity of the human mind and what passes the time of day for the millions who keep their serenity amid the relentless processes of wresting their provender from the clutch of tongs organized against them-— this is always interesting and sometimes marvelous

Daily is death and despair stood off by those who in hard tnals know how and when to laugh

The fox counts hens in his dreams The eagle has an empire in the air Man under his hat has several possessions of comedy

The name of a stub line under the Lone Star banner is The Houston Eastern and Western Texas railroad

On the passenger and freight cars is the monogram, the initials H E W T

And nearly everybody m the territory traversed and the adjacent right of way calls it “Hell Either Way you Take It "

The Never Did and Couldn't railway is the N D & C Newburgh, Duchess and Connecticut

The Delay Linger and Wait is the D L & W , the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western

Come Boys and Quit Railroading ran the slogan of the 1888 engineers' strike on the C B & Q RR , the Chicago Burlington & Quincv Rail Road

The floors of the new horse stables were translucent tile, the drink- ing fountains of marble, the mangers of mahogany, the feed- boxes furbished with silver trimmings and inlays 'Well, gentlemen," said the proprietor to his inspecting friends, "is there anything you can think of that is lacking?"

"I can think of nothing," said an irreverent one, "unless you want to put in a sofa for each horse "...

 

Combien tout ce qui est institutionnel et qui se dresse devant le petit peuple comme un sanctuaire infiniment respectable et participe de son infantilisation, n'est au fond, pour le poète, qu'une institution bien humaine. Ainsi de la justice et de ceux qui la mettent en oeuvre : un juge n'est ni plus ni moins qu'un homme, un homme ayant son chemin d'homme unique, son cercle d'homme unique et son orbite parmi d'autres hommes, chacun d'entre eux étant un homme., un bipède humain sans plumes ayant des intestins, des glandes, des vessies et des vaisseaux sanguins complexes dans le cerveau, un  mortel fragile de plus, une bougie de plus qu'un changement soudain de vent pourrait éteindre comme n'importe quelle bougie ordinaire s'éteint dans un changement de vent....

 

(72) What is a judged A judge is a seated torso and head sworn before God never to sell justice nor play favorites while he umpires the disputes brought before him

When you take the cigar out of your face and the fedora off your head m the presence of the court, you do it because it is required from those who are supposed to know they have come into a room where burns the white light of that priceless abstraction named justice,

What is a judge ? The perfect judge is austere, impersonal, impartial, marking the line of right or wrong by a hairsbreadth 

Before him, bow humbly, bow low, be a pilgrim, light a candle 

For he is a rara avis, a rare bird, a white blackbird, a snowwhite crow

What is a judge? A featherless human biped having bowels, glands, bladders, and intricate blood vessels of the brain,

One more frail mortal, one more candle a sudden change of wind might blow out as any common candle blows out in a wind change 

So that never again does he sit in his black robes of solemn import before a crowded courtroom saying two-years ten-years twenty-years life for you or ''hanged by the neck till you are dead dead dead ''

What is a judge? One may be the owner of himself coming to his decisions often in a blur of hesitations knowing by what snarled courses and ropes of reason justice operates, with reservations, in twilight zones

What is a judge? Another owns no more than the little finger of himself, others owning him, others having placed him where he is, others telling him what they want and getting it, others referring to him as "our judge'' as though he is measured and weighed beforehand the same as a stockyards hog, others holding him to decisions evasive of right or wrong, others writing his decisions for him, the atmosphere hushed and guarded, the atmosphere having a faint stockyards perfume 

What is a judge? Sometimes a mind giving one side the decision and the other side a lot of language and sympathy, sometimes washing his hands and rolling a pair of bones and leaving equity to a pair of galloping ivories

What is a judge? A man picked for a job by politicians with an eye sometimes on justice for the public, equal rights to all persons entering - or again with an eye on lucrative favors and special accommodations - a man having bowels, glands, bladders, and intricate blood vessels of the brain

Take that cigar out of your face Take that hat off your head 

And why? why? Because here we are sworn never to sell justice and here burns the white light of that priceless abstraction named justice

What is a judge?

He is a man

Yes, after all, and no matter what, and beyond all procedures and investitures, a judge is nothing more nor less than a man - one man having his one-man path, his one- man circle and orbit among other men each of whom is one man 

Therefore should any judge open his mouth and speak as though his words have an added light and weight beyond the speech of one man?

Of what IS he the mouthpiece when he speaks?

Of any ideas or passions other than those gathered and met in the mesh of his own personality? Can his words be measured forth in so special a realm of exact justice in- structed by tradition, that they do not relate to the living transitory blood of his vitals and brain, the blood so soon to cool in evidence of his mortal kinship with all other men?"

L'homme libre est un oiseau rare - Le peuple, les êtres humains, dans toutes leurs contradictions changeantes, propulsant des nains au pouvoir et réduisant des titans en nains, un peuple qui apprend mais désapprend tout autant, les croyances soufflent tout autant que le vent, des hommes prêts à mourir, pour une lumière, un espoir, une parole, mourant tout autant pour la liberté et l'autorité, même si l'une est le feu et l'autre l'eau, équilibre précaire, mais l'ordre et la loi ont un prix, tout comme la révolte et la terreur, quels dirigeants savent établir cette équation, L'homme libre prêt à payer, à lutter et à mourir pour sa liberté et celle des autres sachant jusqu'où se soumettre à la discipline et à l'obéissance au nom d'une société ordonnée, libre de tyrans, d'exploiteurs et de fraudeurs légalisés, Cet homme libre est un oiseau rare et quand vous le rencontrerez, regardez-le bien et essayez de le comprendre parce qu'un jour, quand les États-Unis de la Terre se mettront en marche et fonctionneront bien, il y en aura davantage que maintenant... "What is worth listening to? why do we live? when is a homeseeker just one more trespasser? and what is worth dying for?", scande le poète ...

 

(87) "The people learn, unlearn, learn, 

a builder, a wrecker, a builder again, 

a juggler of shifting puppets 

In so few eyeblmks 

In transition lightning streaks, 

the people project midgets into giants, 

the people shrink titans into dwarfs

Faiths blow on the winds 

and become shibboleths 

and deep growths 

with men ready to die 

for a living word on the tongue, 

for a light alive in the bones, 

for dreams fluttering in the wrists

For liberty and authority they die 

though one is fire and the other water

and the balances of freedom and discipline 

are a moving target with changing decoys

Revolt and terror pay a price

Order and law have a cost

What is this double use of fire and water?

Where are the rulers who know this riddle?

On the fingers of one hand you can number them 

How often has a governor of the people first 

learned to govern himself ?

The free man willing to pay and struggle and die for the freedom for himself and others 

Knowing how far to subject himself to discipline and obedience for the sake of an ordered society free from tyrants, exploiters and legalized frauds—

This free man is a rare bird and when you meet him take a good look at him and try to figure him out because 

Some day when the United States of the Earth gets going and runs smooth and pretty there will be more of him than we have now..."

 

"The people is pandora's box, humpty dumpty, a clock of doom and an avalanche when it turns loose...", de l'infinie diversité du peuple, du petit peuple qui forge le monde en se complétant les uns les autres, dans une sorte d'harmonie qui trace son chemin mais sans véritablement en connaître la direction ...

 

(97) Somebody has to make the tubs and pails 

Not yet do the tubs and pails grow on trees and all you do is pick ’em

For tubs and pails we go first to the bmber cruisers, to the loggers, hewers, sawyers, choppers, peelers, pilers, saw filers, skid greasers, slip tenders, teamsters, lumber shovers, tallymen, planers, bandsawmen, circularsaw-men, hoopers, matchers, nailers, painters, truckmen, packers, haulers.

For the sake of a tub or a pail to you

And for the sake of a jack-knife in your pocket, or a scissors on your table.

The dynamite works get into production and deliver to the miners who blast, the mule drivers, engineers and firemen on the dinkies, the pumpmen, the rope nders, the sinkers and sorters, the carpenters, electricians and repairmen, the foremen and straw bosses.

They get out the ore and send it to the smelters, the converters where by the hands and craft of furnace crushers and hot blast handlers, ladlers, puddlers, the drag-out man, the hook-up man, the chipper, the spannerman, the shearsman, the squeezer.

There is steel for the molders, the cutlers, buffers, finishers, forgers, grinders, polishers, temperers—

This for the sake of a jack-knife to your pocket or a shears on your table

 These are the people, with flaws and failings, with patience, sacrifice, devotion, the people

The people is a farmer, a tenant and a share-cropper, a plowman, a plow-grinder and a choreman, a chumer, a chicken-picker and a combine driver, a threshing crew and an old settlers’ picnic, a creamery cooperative, or a line of men on wagons selling tomatoes or sugar-beets on contract to a cannery, a refinery.

The people is a tall freight-handler and a tough longshoreman, a greasy fireman and a gambling oil-well shooter with a dnller and tooler ready, a groping miner going underground with a headlamp, an engi- neer and a fireman with an eye for semaphores, a seaman, deckhand, pilot at the wheel in fog and stars

The people? A weaver of steel-and-concrete floors and walls fifty floors up, a blueprint designer, an expert calculator and accountant, a carpenter with an eye for joists and elbows, a bncklayer with an ear for the pling of a trowel, a pile-driver crew pounding down the pierposts 

The people? Harness bulls and narcotic dicks, multigraph girls and soda- jerkers, hat girls, bat boys, sports writers, ghost wnters, popcorn and peanut squads, flatfeet, scavengers, mugs saying “Aw go button your nose,” squirts hollering “Aw go kiss yourself outa dis game mtuh anuddah,” dead-heads, hops, cappers, come-ons, tin horns, small timers, the night club outfits helping the soup-and-fish who have to do something between midnight and bedtime The people? A puddler in the flaring splinters of newmade steel, a milk- wagon-driver getting the once-over from a milk inspector, a sand-hog with “the bends,” a pack-rat, a snow-queen, janitors, jockeys, white collar lads, pearl divers, peddlers, bundlestiffs, pants pressers, cleaners and dyers, lice and rat exterminators

So many forgotten, so many never remembered at all, yet there are well-diggers, school-teachers, window washers who unless buckled proper dance on air and go down down, coal heavers, roundhouse wipers, hostlers, sweepers, samplers, weighers, sackers, carvers, bloom chippers, kiln burners, cocks, bakers, beekeepers, goat raisers, goat hay growers, slag-rollers, melters, solderers, track greasers, jiggermen, snow-plow drivers, clamdiggers, stoolpigeons, the buck private, the gob, the leatherneck, the cop -

In uniform, in white collars, m overalls, in denim and gingham, a number on an assembly line, a name on a polling list, a post oflEce address, a crime and sports page reader, a movie goer and radio listener, a stock- market sucker, a sure thing for slick gamblers, a union man or non-union, a job holder or a job hunter,

Always either employed, disemployed, unemployed and employable or unemployable, a world series fan, a home buyer on a shoestring, a down-and-out or a game fighter who will die fighting

The people is the grand canyon of humanity and many many miles across 

The people is pandora's box, humpty dumpty, a clock of doom and an avalanche when it turns loose

The people rest on land and weather, on time and the changing winds The people have come far and can look back and say, '*We will go farther yet "

The people is a plucked goose and a shorn sheep of legalized fraud And the people is one of those mountain slopes holding a volcano of retribution,

Slow m all things, slow in its gathered wrath, slow m its onward heave,

Slow in its asking 'Where are we now? what time is It?"

 

L'homme de la rue est nourri de mensonges en temps de paix, de gaz en temps de guerre, et il vit peut-être maintenant juste au coin de la rue, essayant de vendre la seule chose qu'il a à vendre, le pouvoir de ses mains et de son cerveau pour gagner de quoi tout simplement de quoi vivre, peu importe ce qu'il est, il est prêt à tout, ils peut vivre de maïs dur et aimer ça, il peut épouser une cause, ils sauront mourir pour elle (Give them a cause and they are a living dynamite), il est dur comme de l'acier et a été élevé dans un monde mécanisé, et ce n'est que lorsqu'il commencera à s'établir, qu'il commencera à s'interroger, en se demandant, "Pourquoi est-ce ainsi ?", "Qui paie pour cette propagande ?", "Qui possède la terre et pourquoi ?", “Why is this what it is?”, “Who is paying for this propaganda?”, “Who owns the earth and why?”. Et reviennent constamment face à cette réalité, toujours les mêmes lieux communs de ceux qui possèdent déjà, "Il y a des cas exceptionnels, mais là où il y a de la pauvreté, vous trouverez généralement qu'ils étaient imprévoyants et manquaient de compétence ou tout simplement d'intelligence", "Le système de libre concurrence que nous avons maintenant a fait de l'Amérique le plus grand et le plus riche pays sur la face du globe. Vous chercherez en vain un pays où un si grand nombre de personnes ont eu autant de bonnes choses de la vie", ' Les mécontents qui attisent le sentiment de classe et engendrent la haine de classe sont les principaux ennemis de notre république et de son gouvernement constitutionnel"; et ainsi de suite? La terrible menace connue et inexprimée, "Faites ce qu'on vous dit ou vous aurez faim, écoutez-nous ou vous ne mangerez pas. Il marche et marche et marche et se demande pourquoi il a pu construire cette route. J'ai déjà construit un chemin de fer, maintenant mon frère, tu peux me donner un centime ?" : "Do what we tell you or go hungry, listen to us or you don't eat He walks and walks and walks and wonders why the hell he built the road Once I built a railroad now brother, can you spare a dime?" ...

Un peu plus en avant, le poète reviendra sur ses lieux communs qui, sans bruit, énoncés comme des évidences que ni le riche ni le pauvre ne discutent, le premier parce qu'il y puise son autorité et le second parce qu'il a tout simplement faim et tente d'exister : "Between highballs at the club amid the commodious leather chairs, only the souse, the fool, would lift a glass with the toast 'Here's to the poor let'em suffer, they're used to it ' ..."

 

(99) The man in the street is fed 

with lies m peace, gas in war, 

and he may live now just around the corner from you 

trying to sell

the only thing he has to sell, 

the power of his hand and brain 

to labor for wages, for pay, 

for cash of the realm 

And there are no takers, he can't connect 

Maybe he says, ''Some pretty good men are on the street "

 Maybe he says, "Tm just a palooka all washed up" 

Maybe he's a wild kid ready for his first stickup 

Maybe he's bummed a thousand miles and has a diploma. 

Maybe he can take whatever the police can hand him.

Too many of him saying in their own wild way,

'The worst they can give you is lead m the guts " 

Whatever the wild kids want to do they'll do 

And whoever gives them ideas, faiths, slogans.

Whoever touches the bottom flares of them.

Connects with something prouder than all deaths

For they can live on hard corn and like it

They are the original sons of the wild jackass

Crowned and clothed with what the Unknown Soldier had

If he went to his fate m a pride over all deaths

Give them a cause and they are a living dynamite

They are the game fighters who will die fighting

Here and there a man in the street 

is young, hard as nails, 

cold with questions he asks 

from his burning insides

Bred in a motorized world of trial and error 

He measures by millionths of an inch,

Knows ball bearings from spiral gearings,

Cham transmission, heat treatment of steel,

Speeds and feeds of automatic screw machines.

Having handled electric tools 

With pistol grip and trigger switch 

Yet he can’t connect and he can name thousands 

Like himself idle amid plants also idle 

He studies the matter of what is justice 

And revises himself on money, comfort, good name 

He doesn’t know what he wants 

And says when he gets it he’ll know it 

He asks, “Why is this what it is?”

He asks, “Who is paying for this propaganda?”

He asks, “Who owns the earth and why?”

Here and there a wife or sweetheart sees with him 

The pity of being sold down the river in a smoke 

Of confusions taken from the mouths of the dead 

And spoken as though those dead are alive now 

And would say now what they said then

“Let him go as far as he likes,” says one lawyer who sits on several heavy directorates

‘What do we care? Is he any of our business? If he knew how he could manage

“There are exceptional cases but where there is poverty you will generally find they were improvident and lacking in thrift and industry 

“The system of free competition we now have has made America the greatest and richest country on the face of the globe 

“You will seek m vain for any land where so large a number of people have had so many of the good things of life 

“The malcontents who stir up class feeling and engender class hatred are the foremost enemies of our republic and its constitutional government ”

And so on and so on in further confusions taken from the mouths of the dead and spoken as though those dead are alive now and would say now what they said then

Like the form of a seen and unheard prowler. 

Like a slow and cruel violence,

is the known unspoken menace 

Do what we tell you or go hungry, 

listen to us or you don't eat

He walks and walks and walks

and wonders why the hell he built the road

Once I built a railroad 

now

brother, can you spare a dime?

To his dry well a man carried 

all the water he could carry, 

primed the pump, drew out the water, 

and now

he has all the water he can carry

We asked the cyclone 

to go around our barn 

but it didn't hear us ..."

 

Sandburg fait jaillir de l'histoire humaine et de notre société, dans une longue, très longue complainte, la réalité de ce peuple invisible qui forge notre monde dans sa diversité, ses hésitations, ses atermoiements. On le nomme sans le connaître, on parle abusivement en son nom, on le maintient dans une fragilité constante, on l'enferme dans ses contradictions, et lui-même, prisonnier d'un langage qui n'est pas le sien, fuit de tout côté, obsédé, quelqu'en soit les moyens, par sa propre survie. Et c'est ainsi que progressivement, au rythme d'un interrogation constante, qui sommes-nous, où allons-nous, qu'espérons-nous, le poète en vient à affiirmer sont parti des faibles contre les forts, des humiliés, des pauvres, contre l'arrogance des riches. "Les droits de la propriété sont défendus. / Par dix mille lois et forteresses / Le droit de l'homme à vivre de son travail ?  / Quel est ce droit ? / Et pourquoi fait-il du bruit ? / Et qui pourrait l'étouffer / Afin qu'il reste étouffé ? / Et pourquoi parle-t-il ? / Et bien que vaincu, parle-t-il encore / Avec force au-dessus de la terre ?"

Quand Sandburg écrit ce recueil, Mussolini et Hitler sont déjà au pouvoir, tandis que Franco jette son manteau noir sur l`Espagne....

"Qui fut cet antique escroc chinois qui réussit sa révolution et lâcha un cri de coq : “Brûlez tous les livres. L`histoire doit commencer avec nous" ? / Qu`est-ce qui le travaillait au point qu`il dût brûler tous les livres É' / Et pourquoi voulons-nous tous lire ces livres justement parce qu'il les détestait à ce point ?"

"Dans l`entourage intime du dictateur/ Du bureau au bout d'une longue pièce/ Où l'imitation de Dieu tout-puissant/ Est assise dirigeant l'affaire / Ils savent grâce à la pression de leur propre moi que cela aussi se perdra / Dans la grande ombre de masse du peuple / Eternel."

On ne trouve guère ailleurs dans la poésie américaine un tel souffle contre la misère, contre la guerre, contre la dictature ...

 

The People Will Live - Les gens continueront à vivre, Ils seront trompés et vendus et encore vendus, mais ils apprendront et continueront à vivre, nul ne peut ignorer leur capacité à surmonter le pire..

 

The people will live on.

The learning and blundering people will live on.

They will be tricked and sold and again sold

And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,

The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,

You can”t laugh offtheir capacity to take it.

The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,

is a vast huddle with many units saying:

“I earn my living.

I make enough to get by

and it takes all my time.

If I had more time

I could do more for myself

and maybe for others.

I could read and study

and talk things over

and find out about things.

It takes time.

I wish I had the time”

The people is a tragic and comic two-face:

hero and hoodlum: phantom and gorilla twist-

ing to moan with a gargoyle mouth: “They

buy me and sell me . _ .it°s a game...

sometime I”ll break loose . _ .”

Once having marched

Over the margins of animal necessity,

Over the grim line of sheer subsistence

Then man came

To the deeper rituals of his bones,

To the lights lighter than any bones,

. To the time for thinking things over,

To the dance, the song, the story,

Or the hours given over to dreaming,

Once having so marched.

 

Entre les limites finies de nos perceptions et les désirs infinis de l'être humain pour l'au-delà, nous nous accrochont à la soumission banale au travail et à la nourriture, tout en tendant la main lorsqu'elle se présente, pour des lumières au-delà des prismes des sens, pour des souvenirs qui durent au-delà de la faim ou de la mort, le peuple prend la terre comme une tombe de repos et un berceau d'espoir. Les étoiles ne font pas de bruit, On ne peut pas empêcher le vent de souffler, Le temps est un grand professeur, Qui peut vivre sans espoir ?

Dans l'obscurité avec un grand paquet de chagrin Le peuple marche. Dans la nuit, et au-dessus d'une pelletée d'étoiles pour le peuple qui marche : "Où aller ? Et après ?" ...

 

Between the finite limitations of the live senses

and the endless yearnings of man for the beyond

the people hold to the humdrum bidding of work and food

while reaching out when it comes their way

for lights beyond the prisms of the five senses,

for keepsakes lasting beyond any hunger or death.

This reaching is alive.

The panderers and liars have violated and smutted it.

Yet this reaching is alive yet

for lights and keepsakes.

The people know the salt of the sea

and the strength of the winds

lashing the corners of the earth.

The people take the earth

as a tomb of rest and a Cradle of hope.

Who else speaks for the Family ofMan?

They are in tune and step

with constellations of universal law.

The people is a polychrome,

a spectrum and a prism

held in a moving monolith,

a console organ of changing themes,

a clavilux ofcolor poems

wherein the sea offers fog

and the fog moves off in rain

and the labrador sunset shortens

to a nocturne of clear stars

serene over the shot spray

of northern lights.

The steel mill sky is alive.

The fire breaks white and zigzag

shot on a gun-metal gloaming.

Man is a long time coming.

Man Will yet win.

Brother may yet line up with brother:

This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers

There are men who can”t be bought.

The fireborn are at home in fire.

The stars make no noise.

You can”t hinder the wind from blowing.

Time is a great teacher.

Who can live without hope?

In the darkness with a great bundle ofgrief

the people march.

In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for

keeps, the people march:

“Where to? What next?”