Horse Fiddle

First I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind.
 Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on his soft wire legs learning to stand up and preach, Jack-in-the-pulpit.
 As many poems as I have written to the moon and the streaming of the moon spinners of light, so many of the summer moon and the winter moon I would like to shoot along to your ears for nothing, for a laugh, a song,
   for nothing at all,
   for one look from you,
   for your face turned away
   and your voice in one clutch
   half way between a tree wind moan
   and a night-bird sob.
 Believe nothing of it all, pay me nothing, open your window for the other singers and keep it shut for me.
 The road I am on is a long road and I can go hungry again like I have gone hungry before.
 What else have I done nearly all my life than go hungry and go on singing?
 Leave me with the hoot owl.
 I have slept in a blanket listening.
 He learned it, he must have learned it
 From two moons, the summer moon,
 And the winter moon
 And the streaming of the moon spinners of light.
Horse Fiddle

by Carl Sandburg, 1920
