Friday, July 27, 2007

Poetry Friday: Carl Sandburg's "Be Ready"


Dedication at the beginning of Carl Sandburg's Wind Song:

Dear young folks:
Some poems may please you for half a minute & you don't care whether you keep them or not. Other poems you may feel to be priceless & you hug them to your heart to keep for sure. Here in this book poems of each kind may be found: you do the finding.

I sign this book for you saying love & blessings: may luck stars ever be over you.

Carl Sandburg




BE READY

Be land ready
for you shall go back to land.

Be sea ready
for you have been nine-tenths water
and the salt taste shall cling to your mouth.

Be sky ready
for air, air, has been so needful to you -
you shall go back, back to the sky.

(--Carl Sandburg (from Wind Song, 1960)


MsMac is rounding up the Poetry Friday posts at Check it Out.

5 comments:

Andromeda Jazmon said...

Wow I love this! I am hugging this one tight for sure.

Lady K said...

That's a great poem!

John Mutford said...

I love how in tune with our environment he implies we are. The repetition in the third stanza is intriguing though don't you think? Can't quite figure that part out yet, but it has me thinking!

Lone Star Ma said...

Very nice.

Myth said...

glad I read back to find this one before it disappeared off the page! THANKS!