Independence Day Poems: 'Good Night' by Carl Sandburg (1920)

Poetry

Good Night

*by Carl Sandburg (from Smoke and Steel, 1920)*

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.


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