Eureka Series: Love Letter to Carl Sandburg

Paul Hostovsky

Today's Eureka poem is by Paul Hostovsky from his book Mostly:

Love Letter to Carl Sandburg

I’m sipping my tea on the ground floor

of the Federal Reserve Building,

a handful of suits at the table behind me

talking about profit margins, inventories,

low hanging fruit, when I notice this little girl

on the sidewalk outside the window,

conducting the wind with her tiny hands,

the autumn wind, which is counting its money

and throwing it away, counting its money

and throwing it away--a whirlwind of dancing leaves

going up and around and around in the wind tunnel

that this tall building I’m sitting in has created

with the other tall buildings. And as though

she had created it, she conducts it, shapes it,

urges it with her twirling hands

to keep counting its money and throwing it away,

counting its money and throwing it away

in front of the Federal Reserve, where now I see

her mother waiting at the curb with a big

suitcase and a little suitcase, texting,

scanning the intersection for their ride-share,

not looking at the girl or the swirling leaves,

looking only at her phone, and the endless line of cars,

searching for the one that’s theirs. And when it pulls up

on the opposite side of Atlantic Avenue

she waves to the girl to come--now--hurry!

And the girl waves goodbye to the symphony of leaves

that goes on playing and dancing without her

as she pulls the little suitcase behind the mother

who is pulling the big suitcase toward the waiting car.

And I can almost feel you here, right beside me,

seeing what I’m seeing, wanting what I’m wanting:

to write it all down, not for the suits at the table behind us,

still talking about expenditures and revenues,

but for the wind that goes on counting its money

and throwing it away on Atlantic Avenue.

Paul Hostovsky is the author of thirteen books of poetry, most recently, <i>Pitching for the Apostates</i> (Kelsay, 2023). He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and the Muriel Craft Bailey Award. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter.

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