Carl Sandburg: "Good Night"

Many ways to say good night.

Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
      spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue
      and then go out.

Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack mushrooming a white pillar.

Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields to razorback hill.

It is easy to spell good night.
            Many ways to spell good night.




"Good Night" by Carl Sandburg, from Smoke and Steel. © Kessinger Publishing, 2004.

Art credit: "July 4th Fireworks," photograph by Nasim Mansurov (originally color).