Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918.

60. Testament

I GIVE the undertakers permission to haul my body

to the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the

feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left

over they can not put away.

Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty

people eat the clover over my graveand if any yellow

hair or any blue smoke of flowers is good enough to grow

over melet the dirty-fisted children of the shanty

people pick these flowers.

I have had my chance to live with the people who have

too much and the people who have too little and I chose

one of the two and I have told no man why.