Carl Sandburg

Three Balls

ABOWSKY’S place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls.  
When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation:  

A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone,  
And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left elbow of Jesus is represented.  

I passed to-day and they were all there, resting in proud isolation, the clock and the crucifix saying no more and no less than before, and a yellow cat sleeping in a patch of sun alongside the family bible with the hasps off.      

Only the rain washes the dusty three balls in front of Jabowsky’s place on a side street.

Cornhuskers. 1918.

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