Page:Slabs of the sunburnt West.djvu/17

THE WINDY CITY

I

The lean hands of wagon men
put out pointing fingers here,
picked this crossway, put it on a map,
set up their sawbucks, fixed their shotguns,
found a hitching place for the pony express,
made a hitching place for the iron horse,
the one-eyed horse with the fire-spit head,
found a homelike spot and said, " Make a home,"

saw this corner with a mesh of rails, shuttling people, shunting cars, shaping the junk of the earth to a new city.

The hands of men took hold and tugged
And the breaths of men went into the junk
And the junk stood up into skyscrapers and asked:
Who am I? Am I a city? And if I am what is my name?
And once while the time whistles blew and blew again
The men answered : Long ago we gave you a name.

Long ago we laughed and said: You? Your name is Chicago.

Early the red men gave a name to a river, the place of the skunk,
the river of the wild onion smell,

Shee-caw-go.

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