Saturday Poetry

 

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerliz and Waterloo. 

Shovel them under and let me work---

                      I am the grass; I cover all. 

And pile them high at Gettysburg 

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. 

Shovel them under and let me work. 

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

                      What place is this?

                      Where are we now?

                      I am the grass. 

                      Let me work. 

Carl Sandburg, 1918