Home ⇒ 📌Carl Sandburg ⇒ Sandpipers
Sandpipers
Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes.
Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night.
Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and feet.
(2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Sand Scribblings THE WIND stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin. A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel changes, the floor changes. The sandpipers, maybe they know. Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell. Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses. The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away. Five of them fly and […]...
- The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
- Thus the Mayne glideth THUS the Mayne glideth Where my Love abideth; Sleep ‘s no softer: it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate’er befall, Meandering and musical, Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there […]...
- 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
- "I Love You Sweatheart" A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
- The Walking Man of Rodin LEGS hold a torso away from the earth. And a regular high poem of legs is here. Powers of bone and cord raise a belly and lungs Out of ooze and over the loam where eyes look and ears hear And arms have a chance to hammer and shoot and run motors. You make us […]...
- The Golf Walk Behold, my child, this touching scene, The golfer on the golfing-green; Pray mark his legs’ uncanny swing, The golf-walk is a gruesome thing! See how his arms and shoulders ride Above his legs in haughty pride, While over bunker, hill and lawn His feet, relentless, drag him on. And does the man walk always so? […]...
- Faithless Nelly Gray A Pathetic Ballad Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war’s alarms; But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms. Now as they bore him off the field, Said he, ‘Let others shoot; For here I leave my second leg, And the Forty-second Foot.’ The army-surgeons made him […]...
- Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain, -Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain – I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, […]...
- Sonnet I: Loving In Truth Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her […]...
- A Noon Song There are songs for the morning and songs for the night, For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon; But who will give praise to the fulness of light, And sing us a song of the glory of noon? Oh, the high noon, the clear noon, The noon with golden crest; When the blue […]...
- Astrophel and Stella: I ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; […]...
- From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
- E TENEBRIS Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in […]...
- Legs rivers and age with landbound legs a wish For the easy flow of a river – not The clambering up crags to seek More favour from the sun (or long-haired moon) harped for Since those sparks of who am i First clicked through consciousness How the river sidles round Rocks blocking the painful straight Seems to brush aside […]...
- Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
- Variation On A Theme By Rilke A certain day became a presence to me; There it was, confronting me a sky, air, light: A being. And before it started to descend From the height of noon, it leaned over And struck my shoulder as if with The flat of a sword, granting me Honor and a task. The day’s blow Rang […]...
- Otherwise I got out of bed On two strong legs. It might have been Otherwise. I ate Cereal, sweet Milk, ripe, flawless Peach. It might Have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill To the birch wood. All morning I did The work I love. At noon I lay down With my mate. It might Have […]...
- The Garret Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, And we have friends and no butlers. Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried. Dawn enters with little feet like a gilded Pavlova And I am near my […]...
- The City of Sleep “The Brushwood Boy” The Day’s Work Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we pity us! Oh, pity […]...
- Villanelle Katie could put her feet behind her head Or do a grand plié, position two, Her suppleness magnificent in bed. I strained my lower back, and Katie bled, Only a little, doing what we could do When Katie tucked her feet behind her head. Her torso was a C-cup’d figurehead, Wearing below its navel a […]...
- At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
- Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
- How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
- Barefoot Loving me with my shows off Means loving my long brown legs, Sweet dears, as good as spoons; And my feet, those two children Let out to play naked. Intricate nubs, My toes. No longer bound. And what’s more, see toenails and All ten stages, root by root. All spirited and wild, this little Piggy […]...
- Style STYLE go ahead talking about style. You can tell where a man gets his style just As you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs Or Ty Cobb his batting eye. Go on talking. Only don’t take my style away. It’s my face. Maybe no good But anyway, my face. I talk with it, I […]...
- Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
- Pity Me Not Because The Light Of Day Pity me not because the light of day At close of day no longer walks the sky; Pity me not for beauties passed away From field and thicket as the the year goes by; Pity me not the waning of the moon, Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea, Nor that a man’s […]...
- Sleepyheads SLEEP is a maker of makers. Birds sleep. Feet cling to a perch. Look at the balance. Let the legs loosen, the backbone untwist, the head go heavy over, the whole works tumbles a done bird off the perch. Fox cubs sleep. The pointed head curls round into hind legs and tail. It is a […]...
- A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
- May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
- It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
- The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
- Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
- No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
- The Divine Image To Mercy Pity Peace and Love. All pray in their distress: And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love, Is God our Father dear: And Mercy Pity Peace and Love, Is Man his child and care. For Mercy has a human heart Pity, a human face: And Love, […]...
- Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
- Admire their style I’m reading fellow poets’ blogs today, A sustaining source of entertainment; I admire their style without exciting comment Or resorting to an unkind eye, simple though It is to sigh about uneasy affirmation. I hope when they read me (if they ever do) They rest as easy on my lack of finished form, The hazy, […]...
- Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
- Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...