NEVER TWO SONGS THE SAME
the light on the leaves
in girlish early spring
the deep green of the matron leaves
in the stride of high summer suns
the colors of the turning oak and maple
when October crosses gold and brown
there is winter then to wait for
when trees wear frost of a morning
wear snow of an evening
when bare branches often reach out
saying they would be lonely
only for the wind coming
with never two songs the same
with changes always in the old songs
DAYBREAK
Daybreak comes first
in thin splinters shimmering.
Neither is the day here
nor is the night gone.
Night is getting ready to go
And Day whispers, “Soon now, soon.”
BEE SONG
Bees in the late summer sun
Drone their song
Of yellow moons
Trimming black velvet,
Droning, droning a sleepysong.
BUBBLES
Two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves.
They flickered out saying:
“It was worth being a bubble just to have held that rainbow thirty seconds.”
OLD DEEP SING-SONG
in the old deep sing-song of the sea
in the old going-on of that sing-song
in that old mama-mama-mama going-on
of that nightlong daylong sleepsong
we look on we listen
we lay by and hear
too many big bells too many long gongs
too many weepers over a lost gone gold
too many laughs over light green gold
woven and changing in the wash and the heave
moving on the bottoms winding in the waters
sending themselves with arms and voices
up in the old mama-mama-mama music
up into the whirl of spokes of light
FOURTH OF JULY NIGHT
The little boat at anchor
in black water sat murmuring
to the tall black sky.
· · ·
A white sky bomb fizzed on a black line.
A rocket hissed its red signature into the west.
Now a shower of Chinese fire alphabets,
a cry of flower pots broken in flames,
a long curve to a purple spray,
three violet balloons—
Drips of seaweed tangled in gold,
shimmering symbols of mixed numbers,
tremulous arrangements of cream gold folds
of a bride’s wedding gown—
· · ·
A few sky bombs spoke their pieces,
then velvet dark.
The little boat at anchor
in black water sat murmuring
to the tall black sky.
SEA WISDOM
The sea was always the sea
and a maker was the sea always.
What the sea was making you may know
by asking the sea and getting an answer.
Well the sea knows its own importance.
Well the sea will answer you when it knows
your importance.
NIGHTSONG
bring me now the bright flower
of the moongold grass—
let me have later on the horizon
the black gold of moonset—
spill for me then the bowl of dawn
overshot and streaming—
for men have often seen and taken
night as a changing scene
priceless yet paid for
PORTRAIT OF A CHILD SETTLING DOWN FOR AN AFTERNOON NAP
Marquita had blossom fists
and bubble toes.
I saw them, touched them,
the same as an oak gnarled and worn
when the wind bends it down
to a frail hope of an oak
and their leaves touch
and branch whispers to branch.
“Baby say blossom for you are a blossom,
Baby say bubble for you are a bubble,”
I said to Marquita.
And as she lay ready
and prepared to spit at the sky,
I told her to spit in the face of the wind,
not yet having learned what happens.
San Francisco lay in silver tones
and the Golden Gate swaddled
in frames of blue mountains
while Marquita lay swathed as a sweet pig,
pink as a fresh independent pig
ready to spit at the sky.
STARS
The stars are too many to count.
The stars make sixes and sevens.
The stars tell nothing—and everything.
The stars look scattered.
Stars are so far away they never speak
when spoken to.
BE READY
Be land ready
for you shall go back to land.
Be sea ready
for you have been nine-tenths water
and the salt taste shall cling to your mouth.
Be sky ready
for air, air, has been so needful to you—
you shall go back, back to the sky.
AUCTIONEER
Now I go down here and bring up a moon.
How much am I bid for the moon?
You see it a bright moon and brand-new.
What can I get to start it? how much?
What! who ever ever heard such a bid for a moon?
Come now, gentlemen, come.
This is a solid guaranteed moon.
You may never have another chance
to make a bid on such a compact
eighteen-carat durable gold moon.
You could shape a thousand wedding rings
out of this moongold.
I can guarantee the gold and the weddings
will last forever
and then a thousand years more.
Come gentlemen, no nonsense, make me a bid.
SLEEP SONG
Into any little room
may come a tall steel bridge
and a long white fog,
changing lights and mist,
moving as if a great sea
and many mighty waters
had come into that room
easy with bundles of sleep,
bundles of sea-moss sheen,
shapes of sunset cunning,
shifts of moonrise gold—
slow talk of low fog
on your forehead,
hands of cool fog
on your eyes—
so let a sleep song be spoken—
let spoken fog sheets come
out of a long white harbor—
let a slow mist deliver
long bundles of sleep.
ALICE CORBIN IS GONE
Alice Corbin is gone
and the Indians tell us where.
She trusted the Indians
and they kept a trust in her.
She took a four-line Indian song
and put it into English.
You can sing it over and over:
The wind is carrying me round the sky;
The wind is carrying me round the sky.
My body is here in the valley—
The wind is carrying me round the sky.
LINES WRITTEN FOR GENE KELLY TO DANCE TO
Spring is when the grass turns green and glad.
Spring is when the new grass comes up and says, “Hey, hey! Hey, hey!”
Be dizzy now and turn your head upside down and see how the world looks upside down.
Be dizzy now and turn a cartwheel, and see the good earth through a cartwheel.
Tell your feet the alphabet.
Tell your feet the multiplication ta
ble.
Tell your feet where to go, and watch ’em go and come back.
Can you dance a question mark?
Can you dance an exclamation point?
Can you dance a couple of commas?
And bring it to a finish with a period?
Can you dance like the wind is pushing you?
Can you dance like you are pushing the wind?
Can you dance with slow wooden heels and then change to bright and singing silver heels?
Such nice feet, such good feet.
So long as grass grows and rivers run
Silver lakes like blue porcelain plates
Silver snakes of winding rivers.
You can see ’em on a map.
Why we got geography?
Because we go from place to place. Because the earth used to be flat and had four corners, and you could jump off from any of the corners.
But now the earth is not flat any more. Now it is round all over. Now it is a globe, a ball, round all over, and we would all fall off it and tumble away into space if it wasn’t for the magnetic poles. And when you dance it is the North Pole or the South Pole pulling on your feet like magnets to keep your feet on the earth.
And that’s why we got geography.
And it’s nice to have it that way.
Why does duh Mississippi River wind and wind?
Why, dat’s easy. She wind so she git where she wanna go.
Mississippi, Rappahannock, Punxatawney. Spell out their names with your heels.
Where duh towns uh Punxatawney and Mauk Chunk? Why, yeanh day’s bof in Pennsylvan-ee-eye-ay.
And dat’s why we got geography.
Left foot, tweedle-dum—right foot tweedle-dee, here they go.
When Yankee Doodle come to town, wot wuz he a-ridin’ on?
A buffalo? A elephant? A horse?
No, no, no, no. A pony it wuz, a pony.
That’s right—
Giddi-ap, Giddi-ap, Giddi-ap, Giddi-ap.
Whoa! Whoa!
Little People
LITTLE GIRL, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY
Little girl, be careful what you say
when you make talk with words, words—
for words are made of syllables
and syllables, child, are made of air—
and air is so thin—air is the breath of God—
air is finer than fire or mist,
finer than water or moonlight,
finer than spider-webs in the moon,
finer than water-flowers in the morning:
and words are strong, too,
stronger than rocks or steel
stronger than potatoes, corn, fish, cattle,
and soft, too, soft as little pigeon-eggs,
soft as the music of hummingbird wings.
So, little girl, when you speak greetings,
when you tell jokes, make wishes or prayers,
be careful, be careless, be careful,
be what you wish to be.
CHILDREN OF THE DESERT
from THE PEOPLE, YES
1.
The old timer on the desert was gray
and grizzled with ever seeing the sun:
“For myself I don’t care whether it rains.
I’ve seen it rain.
But I’d like to have it rain pretty soon sometime.
Then my son could see it.
He’s never seen it rain.”
2.
“What is the east? Have you been in the east?”
the New Jersey woman asked the little girl
the wee child growing up in Arizona who said:
“Yes, I’ve been in the east,
the east is where trees come
between you and the sky.”
BUFFALO BILL
Boy heart of Johnny Jones—aching today?
Aching, and Buffalo Bill in town?
Buffalo Bill and ponies, cowboys, Indians?
Some of us know
All about it, Johnny Jones.
Buffalo Bill is a slanting look of the eyes,
A slanting look under a hat on a horse.
He sits on a horse and a passing look is fixed
On Johnny Jones, you and me, barelegged,
A slanting, passing, careless look under a hat on a horse.
Go clickety-clack, O pony hoofs along the street.
Come on and slant your eyes again, O Buffalo Bill.
Give us again the ache of our boy hearts.
Fill us again with the red love of prairies, dark nights, lonely wagons, and the crack-crack of rifles sputtering flashes into an ambush.
WE MUST BE POLITE
(Lessons for children on how to behave under peculiar circumstances)
1
If we meet a gorilla
what shall we do?
Two things we may do
if we so wish to do.
Speak to the gorilla,
very, very respectfully,
“How do you do, sir?”
Or, speak to him with less
distinction of manner,
“Hey, why don’t you go back
where you came from?”
2
If an elephant knocks on your door
and asks for something to eat,
there are two things to say:
Tell him there are nothing but cold
victuals in the house and he will do
better next door.
Or say: We have nothing but six bushels
of potatoes—will that be enough for
your breakfast, sir?
ARITHMETIC
Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head.
Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven—or five six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky—or the answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again and see how it comes out this time.
If you take a number and double it and double it again and then double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.
Arithmetic is where you have to multiply—and you carry the multiplication table in your head and hope you won’t lose it.
If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?
If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is better in arithmetic, you or your mother?
BOXES AND BAGS
The bigger the box the more it holds.
Empty boxes hold the same as empty heads.
Enough small empty boxes thrown into a big empty box fill it full.
A half-empty box says, “Put more in.”
A big enough box could hold the world.
Elephants need big boxes to hold a dozen elephant handkerchiefs. Fleas fold little handkerchiefs and fix them nice and heat in flea handkerchief-boxes.
Bags lean against each other and boxes stand independent.
Boxes are square with corners unless round with circles.
Box can be piled on box till the whole works comes tumbling.
Pile box on box and the bottom box says, “If you will kindly take notice you will see it all rests on me.”
Pile box on box and the top one says, “Who falls farthest if or when we fall? I ask you.”
Box people go looking for boxes and bag people go looking for bags.
&
nbsp; SIXTEEN MONTHS
On the lips of the child Janet float changing dreams.
It is a thin spiral of blue smoke,
A morning campfire at a mountain lake.
On the lips of the child Janet,
Wisps of haze on ten miles of corn,
Young light blue calls to young light gold of morning.
MARGARET
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.
In your blue eyes, O reckless child,
I saw today many little wild wishes,
Eager as the great morning.
LAUGHING CHILD
from THREE SPRING NOTATIONS ON BIPEDS
The child is on my shoulders.
In the prairie moonlight the child’s legs hang over my shoulders.
She sits on my neck and I hear her calling me a good horse.
She slides down—and into the moon silver of a prairie stream.
She throws a stone and laughs at the clug-clug.
SWEEPING WENDY: STUDY IN FUGUE
Wendy put her black eyes on me
and swept me with her black eyes—
sweep on sweep she swept me.
The Sandburg Treasury Page 21