Carl Sandburg

 

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), American poet and author.

 

Sandburg, Carl: Breathing tokens. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

 

 

 

She was a flame sheath of flesh made for dancing.

 

She believed she ran out into storm, rain, sun, and

 

became part of them and they were afterward woven

 

in her dances.

 

"The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon?

 

I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-

 

flights? I am all of them, I dance what I am.

 

"Sin, prayer, faith, the light that never was on land

 

or sea? I dance what I am."

 

Roses, lovers, money, children, came to her in her

 

life dance from California to Russia.

 

When her dancing days were not yet over but almost

 

come to an end, she died in a swift ride with a flame-red

 

scarf enwrapping her neck tighter and tighter......

 

(Under the poem is a seal with the monogram of Isadora Duncan.)