Carl Sandburg

Population Drifts

NEW-MOWN hay smell and wind of the plain made her
    a woman whose ribs had the power of the hills in
    them and her hands were tough for work and there
    was passion for life in her womb.
She and her man crossed the ocean and the years that
    marked their faces saw them haggling with landlords
    and grocers while six children played on the stones
    and prowled in the garbage cans.
One child coughed its lungs away, two more have adenoids
    and can neither talk nor run like their mother,
    one is in jail, two have jobs in a box factory
And as they fold the pasteboard, they wonder what the
    wishing is and the wistful glory in them that flutters
    faintly when the glimmer of spring comes on
    the air or the green of summer turns brown:
They do not know it is the new-mown hay smell calling
    and the wind of the plain praying for them to come
    back and take hold of life again with tough hands
    and with passion.
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