OLD WOMAN
THE owl-car clatters along, dogged by the echo / From building and battered paving-stone.
THE MIST
❦
I AM the mist, the impalpable mist,
Back of the thing you seek.
My arms are long,
Long as the reach of time and space.
Some toil and toil, believing,
Looking now and again on my face,
Catching a vital, olden glory.
But no one passes me,
I tangle and snare them all.
I am the cause of the Sphinx,
The voiceless, baffled, patient Sphinx.
I was at the first of things,
I will be at the last.
I am the primal mist
And no man passes me;
My long impalpable arms
Bar them all.
More poems by Carl Sandburg
AND THEY OBEY
SMASH down the cities. / Knock the walls to pieces.
WARS
IN the old wars drum of hoofs and the beat of shod feet. / In the new wars hum of motors and the tread of rubber tires.
JOY
LET a joy keep you. / Reach out your hands