Marion Post Wolcott/T.S. Eliot: Goin' for a Ride in the Waste Land (Copper Basin, Tennessee)

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Copper mining section between Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

-- But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air

Murmur of maternal lamentation

Who are those hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only...

Copper mining section between Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

A train bringing copper ore out of the mine, Ducktown, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

A train bringing copper ore out of the mine, Ducktown, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

Copper mining section between Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

Copper mining and sulfuric acid plant, Copperhill, Tennessee: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

Copper mining and sulfuric acid plant, Copperhill, Tennessee: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

Copper mining and sulfuric acid plant, Copperhill, Tennessee: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939

T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land (excerpt), 1922

Photos by Marion Post Wolcott from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Andreas Feininger: Magnitudes (Metals, Utah, 1942)

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View of the Utah Copper Company open-pit mine workings at Carr Fork, as seen from the railroad, Bingham Canyon, Utah: photo by Andreas Feininger, November 1942

Carr Fork Canyon as seen from "G" bridge, Bingham Copper Mine, Utah. In the background can be seen a train with waste or over-burden material on its way to the dump: photo by Andreas Feininger, October 1942

Open-pit workings of the Utah Copper Company, Bingham Canyon, Utah. This is the Carr Fork side from which the company obtains huge amounts of ore. The Carr Fork bridge and main shops appear in the foreground: photo by Andreas Feininger, November 1942

Constructing a building on the site of a new steel mill which will soon turn out steel for the war needs, Columbia Steel Co., Geneva, Utah: photo by Andreas Feininger, November 1942

Partly finished open hearth furnaces and stacks for a steel mill under construction which will soon be producing vitally needed steel, Columbia Steel Co., Geneva, Utah: photo by Andreas Feininger, November 1942

Steel and concrete go into place rapidly as a new steel mill takes form, Columbia Steel Co., Geneva, Utah. The new plant will make important additions to the vast amount of steel needed for the war effort: photo by Andreas Feininger, 1942

American Smelting and Refining, Garfield, Utah: photo by Andreas Feininger. November 1942

"Photography is picture-language...": Andreas Feininger, 1906-1999 (Andreas Feininger Archive)

Photos by Andreas Feininger from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

William Carlos Williams: The Petunia

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Purple petunia: photo by Zirguezi, 2008

Purple!
for months unknown
but for
the barren sky.

A purple trumpet
fragile
as our hopes
from the very
sand
saluting us.

Petunia hybrid ("Sweet Sunshine"): photo by Mira, 2008

Petunia hybrid ("Sweet Sunshine"): photo by 3268zauber, 2009

William Carlos Williams: The Petunia, 1941

William Carlos Williams: Daisy

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Field of daisies and orange flowers, possibly hawkweed, Vermont: photo by John Collier, June 1943 (Library of Congress)

The dayseye hugging the earth


in August, ha! Spring is

gone down in purple,

weeds stand high in the corn,

the rainbeaten furrow

is clotted with sorrel

and crabgrass, the

branch is black under

the heavy mass of the leaves --

The sun is upon a

slender green stem

ribbed lengthwise.

He lies on his back --

it is a woman also --

he regards his former

majesty and

round the yellow center,

split and creviced and done into

minute flowerheads, he sends out

his twenty rays -- a little

and the wind is among them

to grow cool there!

One turns the thing over

in his hand and looks

at it from the rear: brownedged,

green and pointed scales

armor his yellow.

But turn and turn,

the crisp petals remain

brief, translucent, greenfastened,

barely touching at the edges:

blades of limpid seashell.

Daisy (Bellis perennis): photo by Friedrich Böhringer, 2007

William Carlos Williams: Daisy, from Sour Grapes (1921)

Wallace Stevens: The Well Dressed Man with a Beard

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Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York state: photo by John Collier, June 1943

After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing!
Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart,
Green in the body, out of a petty phrase,
Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed:
The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps,
The aureole above the humming house . . .

It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York state: photo by John Collier, June 1943

Wallace Stevens: The Well Dressed Man With a Beard, from Parts of a World, 1942

Photos by John Collier from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

"Seeing the way through..."

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Connecticut town on the sea. Stonington, Connecticut: photo by Jack Delano, November 1940

Seeing the way through
in channel,

waning whiteness of moon
just beyond the border of the picture

spatial without its being it,
so many dimensions

with something of Japan about them,
sense of relief once you reach

a pass in the mountains,
silver of low sun reflected

in a grain of sand
in the mind's hand.

Main street, Creede, Colorado: photo by Andreas Feininger, December 1942

by Stephen, Billy, Aditya, Elmo & TC

Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Sanctuary (Along Skyline Drive)

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View along US 40 in Mount Vernon Canyon, Colorado: photo by Andreas Feininger, December 1942

Start out high above the world

Road cut into the barren hills which lead into Emmett, Idaho: photo by Russell Lee, July 1941

Things appear in some depth

Mountain farms along the Skyline Drive, Virginia: photo by Jack Delano, c. 1940

and with a bit of distance

Mountain farm along the Skyline Drive in Virginia: photo by Jack Delano, c. 1940

then return to earth

Fields along the Skyline Drive, Virginia: photo by Jack Delano, c. 1940

Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress