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Testament

by Carl Sandburg, 1918

I give the undertakers permission to haul my body
 to the graveyard and to lay away all, the head, the
 feet, the hands, all: I know there is something left
 over they can not put away.

 Let the nanny goats and the billy goats of the shanty
 people eat the clover over my grave  and if any yellow
 hair or any blue smoke of flowers is good enough to grow
 over me  let the dirty-fisted children of the shanty
 people pick these flowers.

 I have had my chance to live with the people who have
 too much and the people who have too little and I chose
 one of the two and I have told no man why.

Published in Cornhuskers
Tags: economy, work

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.