SUNDAY night and the park policemen tell each other it
is dark as a stack of black cats on Lake Michigan.
A big picnic boat comes home to Chicago from the peach
farms of Saugatuck.
Hundreds of electric bulbs break the night's darkness, a
flock of red and yellow birds with wings at a standstill.
Running along the deck railings are festoons and leaping
in curves are loops of light from prow and stern
to the tall smokestacks.
Over the hoarse crunch of waves at my pier comes a
hoarse answer in the rhythmic oompa of the brasses
playing a Polish folk-song for the home-comers.

Added: on August 17th, 2004 at 6:09 AM | Viewed: 4259 times | Comments (2)

Poet: Carl Sandburg
Poem: 16. Picnic Boat
Volume: Chicago Poems
- Chicago Poems
Year: Published/Written in 1912
Poem of the Day: Aug 17 2004

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