Whirls
Whirls - meaning Summary
Contrasts of Place and Image
The poem contrasts sanitized, respectable images—roses in a Boston jar or Christ’s blood in a chalice—with harsher, dispersed residues: cinders in Chicago, northwest winds across the Dakotas, and spray on Kamchatka rocks. Sandburg replaces idealized symbols with elemental, mobile fragments that span American and global landscapes, suggesting a democratic, restless materiality beneath cultural or religious order.
Read Complete AnalysesNEITHER rose leaves gathered in a jar-respectably in Boston-these-nor drops of Christ blood for a chalice-decently in Philadelphia or Baltimore. Cinders-these-hissing in a marl and lime of Chicago-also these-the howling of northwest winds across North and South Dakota-or the spatter of winter spray on sea rocks of Kamchatka.
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