Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918.
67. The Sea Hold
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The sea hold on a leg of land in the Chesapeake hugs an early sunset and a last morning star over the oyster beds and the late clam boats of lonely men.
Five white houses on a half-mile strip of land … five white dice rolled from a tube.
And to-day the sea has lost nothing … it keeps all.
I make so many sea songs, I cry so many sea cries, I forget so many sea songs and sea cries.
So are five men I had a fish fry with once in a tar-paper shack trembling in a sand storm.
They know only how the sea hugs and will not let go.
The sea must know more than any of us.