Grass

Carl Sandburg

 Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz 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.

Commentary

This poem really impressed me when I was young. One of the few poems I ever felt compelled to take to memory. I noticed that you have a good number of Sandburg poems (relatively speaking) on your website, so maybe this one does not appeal to everybody1.

— Philip Schreiner

  1. Or maybe we just never got round to running it :) – thomas. ↩


The Wondering Minstrels, poem #1747 · 5 August 2005

Guest poem submitted by Philip Schreiner

Fair use