Prairie Waters by Night by Carl Sandburg

Prairie Waters by Night
by Carl Sandburg




Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water—sheer waters
showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains.

And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music;
joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir chanting new psalms.

It is too much for the long willows when low laughter of a red moon comes down; and the willows
drowse and sleep on the shoulders of the running water




Reading this I want to lay down and look at the stars. A link to read more is here.http://allpoetry.com/Carl_Sandburg

The Road and the End by Carl Sandburg

The Road and the End

BY CARL SANDBURG

I shall foot it

Down the roadway in the dusk,

Where shapes of hunger wander

And the fugitives of pain go by.

I shall foot it

In the silence of the morning,

See the night slur into dawn,

Hear the slow great winds arise

Where tall trees flank the way

And shoulder toward the sky.

The broken boulders by the road

Shall not commemorate my ruin.

Regret shall be the gravel under foot.

I shall watch for

Slim birds swift of wing

That go where wind and ranks of thunder

Drive the wild processionals of rain.

The dust of the travelled road

Shall touch my hands and face.

Really powerful poetry. A link to read more is here. http://carl-sandburg.com/biography.htm

At a Window by Carl Sandburg

At a Window

BY CARL SANDBURG

Give me hunger,

O you gods that sit and give

The world its orders.

Give me hunger, pain and want,

Shut me out with shame and failure

From your doors of gold and fame,

Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,

A voice to speak to me in the day end,

A hand to touch me in the dark room

Breaking the long loneliness.

In the dusk of day-shapes

Blurring the sunset,

One little wandering, western star

Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.

Let me go to the window,

Watch there the day-shapes of dusk

And wait and know the coming

Of a little love.

Slimply said. A link to read more of his poems is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sandburg

Wilderness by Carl Sandburg

Wilderness
by Carl Sandburg
There is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess … I pick things out of the wind and air … I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … I circle and loop and double-cross. There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … a machinery for eating and grunting … a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go. There is a fish in me … I know I came from saltblue water-gates … I scurried with shoals of herring … I blew waterspouts with porpoises … before land was … before the water went down … before Noah … before the first chapter of Genesis. There is a baboon in me … clambering-clawed … dog-faced … yawping a galoot’s hunger … hairy under the armpits … here are the hawk-eyed hankering men … here are the blond and blue-eyed women … here they hide curled asleep waiting … ready to snarl and kill … ready to sing and give milk … waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so. There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness. O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness. Great insight and poetry. A link to read more of his poetry and a bio.  http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/28

Choose by Carl Sandburg

Choose

BY CARL SANDBURG

   THE single clenched fist lifted and ready,

Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.

                     Choose:

For we meet by one or the other.

I love a poems ability to simply make me think or look at something in a different way. I've included a link to read more about him and his poetry. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/carl-sandburg