Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922.
II. People Who Must22. Crimson Changes People
D
and nails and Roman soldiers
and a dusk Golgotha?
washing the feet of all men,
clean as new grass
when the old grass burns?
with a flutter of wings that meant:
we can never come again.
and men with lost faces, lost loves,
and you among the stubs crying?
losing moths among lost faces,
speaking to the stubs who asked you
to speak of songs and God and dancing,
of bananas, northern lights or Jesus,
any hummingbird of thought whatever
flying away from the red death jazz of war?
trying to say with a code of five fingers
something the tongue only stutters?
did I see a dusk Golgotha?