Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind

“The past is a bucket of ashes.”

1


THE WOMAN named To-morrow
 sits with a hairpin in her teeth
 and takes her time
 and does her hair the way she wants it
 and fastens at last the last braid and coil
 and puts the hairpin where it belongs
 and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
 My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
 What of it? Let the dead be dead.


2


The doors were cedar
 and the panels strips of gold
 and the girls were golden girls
 and the panels read and the girls chanted:
   We are the greatest city,
   the greatest nation:
   nothing like us ever was.

 The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
 Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
   where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
   We are the greatest city,
   the greatest nation,
   nothing like us ever was.


3


It has happened before.
 Strong men put up a city and got
   a nation together,
 And paid singers to sing and women
   to warble: We are the greatest city,
     the greatest nation,
     nothing like us ever was.

 And while the singers sang
 and the strong men listened
 and paid the singers well
 and felt good about it all,
   there were rats and lizards who listened
   ... and the only listeners left now
   ... are... the rats... and the lizards.

 And there are black crows
 crying, “Caw, caw,”
 bringing mud and sticks
 building a nest
 over the words carved
 on the doors where the panels were cedar
 and the strips on the panels were gold
 and the golden girls came singing:
   We are the greatest city,
   the greatest nation:
   nothing like us ever was.

 The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,”
 And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
 And the only listeners now are... the rats... and the lizards.


4


The feet of the rats
 scribble on the door sills;
 the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
 chatter the pedigrees of the rats
 and babble of the blood
 and gabble of the breed
 of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
 of the rats.

 And the wind shifts
 and the dust on a door sill shifts
 and even the writing of the rat footprints
 tells us nothing, nothing at all
 about the greatest city, the greatest nation
 where the strong men listened
 and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.
Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind

by Carl Sandburg, 1922
