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Omaha

by Carl Sandburg, 1920

Red barns and red heifers spot the green
 grass circles around Omaha—the farmers
 haul tanks of cream and wagon loads of cheese.

 Shale hogbacks across the river at Council
 Bluffs—and shanties hang by an eyelash to
 the hill slants back around Omaha.

 A span of steel ties up the kin of Iowa and
 Nebraska across the yellow, big-hoofed Missouri River.
 Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
 Eats and swears from a dirty face.
 Omaha works to get the world a breakfast.

Published in Smoke and Steel
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