God, it is something
face the sun know you are free
hear the undersong
IT is something to face the sun and know you are free.
To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth
And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean:
It is something.
To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands,
Clean for the day book today and the record of the after days,
Held at your side proud, satisfied to the last, and ready,
So to have clean hands:
God, it is something,
One day of life so
And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out
And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.
Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth.
O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum.
And O the great brave men, the silent little brave men, proud of their hands—clutching the knuckles of their fingers into fists ready for death and the dark, ready for life and the fight, the pay and the memories — O the men proud of their hands.
Clean Hands by Carl Sandburg as printed in Smoke and steel, (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920)
Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth
On June 17, 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Monroe, “I sincerely wish you may find it convenient to come here. The pleasure of the trip will be less than you expect but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country, it’s soil, it’s climate, it’s equality, liberty, laws, people and manners. My god! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.”
Two years before the Constitution, they were both future Presidents but that was a job that didn’t even exist yet.
As I drive to work and face the sun with clean hands I feel the sun on my face but cannot help but hear the sob and its undersong.
I read the news and I think, My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of.
No Haiku For You 