The Sounding Foam of Primal Things
*(The title and the poem, taken from and inspired by
Carl Sandburg's "Who Am I?")
wind and rain pound the surf.
snow falls on the beach, on the shore.
man-observer cannot tell:
has the earth gone mad, all wet?
do the seas rise, whipped up, filling the heavens,
or does the white rain replenishes the very body,
from whence it came, and now returns?
this matters greatly, yet nothing answers this, his question.
the furious soundings, the green foam churn,
the silence of no response inebriates,
drunk on the tempest's hard wet liquor,
weighed down, sodden with the despair,
solitude, silence, absent answers,
his natural walking companions!
No Stopping signs on almost every corner,
Do Not Pass, Do Not Enter,
One Way, Two Way, No Thru Passage,
but the one sign he seeks,
"Stay On The Path" absent.
Eluded,
dispassionate endings,
the essential quietude among
furious surround-sounds of creative destruction
he ceases to ask, for unanswered, undirected.
Concluded,
either
their is no one listening, or,
there is no one caring, or,
Deluded,
illusion is truth,
he is an illusion.
------------------
Who Am I?
By Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading "Keep Off."
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.
