Chicago, Chicago

I thought I had no concept of Chicago. I thought it was merely a placeholder on the flat face of the Midwest; a blank metropolis in the middle of the generic "American-ness" that is the supposed heartland of this nation. It held no allure for me; I did not feel the tug of curiosity that impels the traveler to fill in the details of place along with name.

Or so I thought.

Even upon landing in the dark of winter evening, as the low houses flashed past the windows of the taxi, even then I could feel the city's essence. Hard working neighborhoods, staunchly neat and unpretentious, neither city nor suburb, gave way to huge, hulking shadows of scattered high rises looming over unseen streets.

Unbidden, fully-formed myths of Chicago sprung to my mind from the depths where they had been fed for years by poetry, songs, and stories I didn't remember digesting. In the pizza shop, I saw a tall man in an impeccable coat whose immense breadth immediately called to mind Sandburg's "City of the Big Shoulders":

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

A small detail on a bridge reminded me that this was the home of the Prairie school of architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright and that gorgeous aesthetic I had loved in so many other places. And yet it seemed to be so at home here, in a way that I had not felt seeing the style elsewhere.

Everywhere, details sang out to me that this, this place I had never given a second thought was the home of poets, architects, writers who have inspired me and fed my artistic soul for years.

Chicago

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.

Carl Sandburg