Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918.

41. Jabberers

I RISE out of my depths with my language.

You rise out of your depths with your language.

Two tongues from the depths,

Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike,

Fling their staccato tantalizations

Into a wildcat jabber

Over a gossamer web of unanswerables.

The second and the third silence,

Even the hundredth silence,

Is better than no silence at all

(Maybe this is a jabber too—are we at it again, you and I?)

I rise out of my depths with my language.

You rise out of your depths with your language.

One thing there is much of; the name men call it by is time; into this gulf our syllabic pronunciamentos empty by the way rockets of fire curve and are gone on the night sky; into this gulf the jabberings go as the shower at a scissors grinder’s wheel.…