83. The Answer. Sandburg, Carl. 1916. Chicago Poems

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

83. The Answer


YOU have spoken the answer.
A child searches far sometimes
Into the red dust
On a dark rose leaf
And so you have gone far	5
For the answer is:
Silence.

In the republic
Of the winking stars
and spent cataclysms	10
Sure we are it is off there the answer
is hidden and folded over,
Sleeping in the sun, careless whether
it is Sunday or any other day of
the week,	15

Knowing silence will bring all one way or another.

Have we not seen
Purple of the pansy
out of the mulch
and mold	20
crawl
into a dusk
of velvet?
blur of yellow?

Almost we thought from nowhere but it was the silence,	25
the future,
working.