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