Morning poems
/ page 284 of 310 /
Old Osawatomie
© Carl Sandburg
JOHN BROWNS body under the morning stars.
Six feet of dust under the morning stars.
And a panorama of war performs itself
Over the six-foot stage of circling armies.
Room for Gettysburg, Wilderness, Chickamauga,
On a six-foot stage of dust.
Margaret
© Carl Sandburg
Many birds and the beating of wings
Make a flinging reckless hum
In the early morning at the rocks
Above the blue pool
Where the gray shadows swim lazy.
Man, the Man-Hunter
© Carl Sandburg
I SAW Man, the man-hunter,
Hunting with a torch in one hand
And a kerosene can in the other,
Hunting with guns, ropes, shackles.
Legends
© Carl Sandburg
CLOWNS DYINGFIVE circus clowns dying this year, morning newspapers told their lives, how each one horizontal in a last gesture of hands arranged by an undertaker, shook thousands into convulsions of laughter from behind rouge-red lips and powder-white face.
STEAMBOAT BILLWhen the boilers of the Robert E. Lee exploded, a steamboat winner of many races on the Mississippi went to the bottom of the river and never again saw the wharves of Natchez and New Orleans.
And a legend lives on that two gamblers were blown toward the sky and during their journey laid bets on which of the two would go higher and which would be first to set foot on the turf of the earth again.
Illinois Farmer
© Carl Sandburg
BURY this old Illinois farmer with respect.
He slept the Illinois nights of his life after days of work in Illinois cornfields.
Now he goes on a long sleep.
The wind he listened to in the cornsilk and the tassels, the wind that combed his red beard zero mornings when the snow lay white on the yellow ears in the bushel basket at the corncrib,
The same wind will now blow over the place here where his hands must dream of Illinois corn.
Ice Handler
© Carl Sandburg
I KNOW an ice handler who wears a flannel shirt with
pearl buttons the size of a dollar,
And he lugs a hundred-pound hunk into a saloon ice-
box, helps himself to cold ham and rye bread,
Hemlock and Cedar
© Carl Sandburg
THIN sheets of blue smoke among white slabs
near the shingle mill
winter morning.
Falling of a dry leaf might be heard
circular steel tears through a log.
Slope of woodland
brown
soft
tinge of blue such as pansy eyes.
Farther, field fires
funnel of yellow smoke
spellings of other yellow in corn stubble.
Bobsled on a down-hill road
February snow mud
horses steaming
Oscar the driver sings ragtime under a spot of red seen a mile
the red wool yarn of Oscars stocking cap is seen from the shingle mill to the ridge of hemlock and cedar.
Helga
© Carl Sandburg
THE WISHES on this childs mouth
Came like snow on marsh cranberries;
The tamarack kept something for her;
The wind is ready to help her shoes.
Grieg Being Dead
© Carl Sandburg
GRIEG being dead we may speak of him and his art.
Grieg being dead we can talk about whether he was any good or not.
Grieg being with Ibsen, Björnson, Lief Ericson and the rest,
Grieg being dead does not care a hells hoot what we say.
Graceland
© Carl Sandburg
TOMB of a millionaire,
A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen,
Place of the dead where they spend every year
The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars
Government
© Carl Sandburg
Everywhere I saw that Government is a thing made of
men, that Government has blood and bones, it is
many mouths whispering into many ears, sending
telegrams, aiming rifles, writing orders, saying
"yes" and "no."
Far Rockaway Night till Morning
© Carl Sandburg
WHAT can we say of the night?
The fog night, the moon night, the fog moon night last night?
There swept out of the sea a song.
Dusty Doors
© Carl Sandburg
CHILD of the Aztec gods,
how long must we listen here,
how long before we go?
Crabapple Blossoms
© Carl Sandburg
SOMEBODYS little girlhow easy to make a sob story over who she was once and who she is now.
Somebodys little girlshe played once under a crab-apple tree in June and the blossoms fell on the dark hair.
It was somewhere on the Erie line and the town was Salamanca or Painted Post or Horses Head.
Chords
© Carl Sandburg
IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes
horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea.
In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders
and a speaking, brooding black velvet, relapsing to the voiceless
battering Russian marches on a piano
drive of blizzards across Nebraska.
Yes, riding horseback on hills by the sea
sitting at the ivory keys in black velvet, a rope of pearls on white shoulders.
Child Margaret
© Carl Sandburg
THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers.
All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a childs room.
Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps.
The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps.
Caboose Thoughts
© Carl Sandburg
ITS going to come out all rightdo you know?
The sun, the birds, the grassthey know.
They get alongand well get along.
Broken-face Gargoyles
© Carl Sandburg
ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles.
It is too early to sing and dance at funerals,
Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you dont.
Brass Keys
© Carl Sandburg
JOY
weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel
painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face
slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room
forever and ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new rooms.
are we near or far?
is there anything else?
who comes back?
and why does love ask nothing and give all? and why is love rare as a tailed comet shaking guesses out of men at telescopes ten feet long? why does the mystery sit with its chin on the lean forearm of women in gray eyes and women in hazel eyes?
