Three Balls

Jabowsky’s place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls.
 When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation:
 A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone,
 And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left elbow of Jesus is represented.
 I passed to-day and they were all there, resting in proud isolation, the clock and the crucifix saying no more and no less than before, and a yellow cat sleeping in a patch of sun alongside the family bible with the hasps off.
 Only the rain washes the dusty three balls in front of Jabowsky’s place on a side street.
Three Balls

by Carl Sandburg, 1918
