Poetry Wednesday: Sandburg

I stopped in Springfield Illinois a few years ago, just to pay my respects to President Lincoln. Here's an account of a visit by Carl Sandburg, from 1918.

Knucks

In Abraham LincolnÂ’s city,
Where they remember his lawyerÂ’s shingle,
The place where they brought him
Wrapped in battle flags,
Wrapped in the smoke of memories
From Tallahassee to the Yukon,
The place now where the shaft of his tomb
Points white against the blue prairie dome,
In Abraham LincolnÂ’s city Â… I saw knucks
In the window of Mister FischmanÂ’s second-hand store
On Second Street.

I went in and asked, “How much?”
“Thirty cents apiece,” answered Mister Fischman.
And taking a box of new ones off a shelf
He filled anew the box in the showcase
And said incidentally, most casually
And incidentally:
“I sell a carload a month of these.”

I slipped my fingers into a set of knucks,
Cast-iron knucks molded in a foundry pattern,
And there came to me a set of thoughts like these:
Mister Fischman is for Abe and the “malice to none” stuff,
And the street car strikers and the strike-breakers,
And the sluggers, gunmen, detectives, policemen,
Judges, utility heads, newspapers, priests, lawyers,
They are all for Abe and the “malice to none” stuff.

I started for the door.
“Maybe you want a lighter pair,”
Came Mister FischmanÂ’s voice.
I opened the door Â… and the voice again:
“You are a funny customer.”

Wrapped in battle flags,
Wrapped in the smoke of memories,
This is the place they brought him,
This is Abraham LincolnÂ’s home town.

I might wonder why Carl Sandburg would need knucks. But then I would be committing the error of assuming that all poetry is autobiography.

Posted by: annika at 08:38 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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