| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 108. Last Answers |
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| I WROTE a poem on the mist | |
| And a woman asked me what I meant by it. | |
| I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist, how pearl and gray of it mix and reel, | |
| And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening into points of mystery quivering with color. | |
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| I answered: | 5 |
| The whole world was mist once long ago and some day it will all go back to mist, | |
| Our skulls and lungs are more water than bone and tissue | |
| And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers | |
| Go running back to dust and mist. | |
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