JOY … weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel … painting on a slab of night sky a Christ face … slipping
new brass keys into rusty iron locks and shouldering till at last the door gives and we are in a new room … forever and
ever violet petals, slabs, the Christ face, brass keys and new rooms.
  
are we near or far?… is there anything else?… who comes back?… and why does love ask nothing and give all? and
why is love rare as a tailed comet shaking guesses out of men at telescopes ten feet long? why does the mystery sit with its
chin on the lean forearm of women in gray eyes and women in hazel eyes? 
  
are any of these less proud, less important, than a cross-examining lawyer? are any of these less perfect than the front page
of a morning newspaper?
  
the answers are not computed and attested in the back of an arithmetic for the verifications of the lazy
  
there is no authority in the phone book for us to call and ask the why, the wherefore, and the howbeit it’s … a
riddle … by God.

Poet: Carl Sandburg
Poem: 10. Brass Keys
Volume: Smoke and Steel
- III. Broken-Face Gargoyles
Year: Published/Written in 1922
Poem of the Day: Apr 19 2006

Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, Brass Keys, has received 2 comments. Click here to read them, and perhaps post a comment of your own.