I've heard all about what a wonderful city you are. My friend Meg used to go when her brother was at Northwestern, and come home to Texas with these enchanting stories about the Pump Room and the shopping and the wind off the lake. You're on my list of places to visit; there's always been something simpatico about your ease, something intriguing about the way everyone wants to sing about you, write about you.

I ask one tiny thing: take care of my friends. They are coming to town, on a modern-day quest fraught with hope and fear. They don't know what awaits them -- and I wouldn't ask you to provide the answers to their questions because that's bigger than even such a great metropolis, but for the fates or God or gods or science.

But you can keep them safe. You can welcome them. You can open your arms and usher them tenderly down your boulevards. I doubt you can warm your famous wind (it being January and all), but at the very least, you can keep it at the backs of Schuyler and her family.

Your favorite son wrote about her, you know, even if he had never met his little muse. Do it for Carl.

The child's wonder At the old moon Comes back nightly. She points her finger To the far silent yellow thing Shining through the branches Filtering on the leaves a golden sand, Crying with her little tongue, “See the moon!” And in her bed fading to sleep With babblings of the moon on her little mouth.     ~ Carl Sandburg