The Poet: Carl Sandburg, “Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind”

“Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind”

 ”The past is a bucket of ashes.”

1

“The woman named Tomorrow  

sits with a hairpin in her teeth  

and takes her time  

and does her hair the way she wants it  

and fastens at last the last braid and coil 

and puts the hairpin where it belongs  

and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?  

My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.  

What of it? Let the dead be dead.  

  

2

The doors were cedar

and the panels strips of gold  

and the girls were golden girls  

and the panels read and the girls chanted:  

  We are the greatest city,  

  the greatest nation:

  nothing like us ever was.  

   

The doors are twisted on broken hinges.  

Sheets of rain swish through on the wind  

  where the golden girls ran and the panels read:  

  We are the greatest city,

  the greatest nation,  

  nothing like us ever was.  

   

3

It has happened before.  

Strong men put up a city and got  

  a nation together,

And paid singers to sing and women  

  to warble: We are the greatest city,  

    the greatest nation,  

    nothing like us ever was.  

   

And while the singers sang

and the strong men listened  

and paid the singers well  

and felt good about it all,  

  there were rats and lizards who listened…  

and the only listeners left now…

 are… the rats… and the lizards.  

   

And there are black crows  

crying, “Caw, caw,”  

bringing mud and sticks  

building a nest

over the words carved  

on the doors where the panels were cedar  

and the strips on the panels were gold  

and the golden girls came singing:  

  We are the greatest city,

  the greatest nation:  

  nothing like us ever was.  

   

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”  

And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.  

And the only listeners now are… the rats… and the lizards.

   

4

The feet of the rats  

scribble on the door sills;  

the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints  

chatter the pedigrees of the rats  

and babble of the blood

and gabble of the breed  

of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers  

of the rats.  

   

And the wind shifts  

and the dust on a door sill shifts

and even the writing of the rat footprints  

tells us nothing, nothing at all  

about the greatest city, the greatest nation  

where the strong men listened  

and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.”

- Carl Sandburg, 1878 – 1967