Carl Sandburg
The People, Yes (excerpt)
Who knows the people, the migratory harvest hands and berry pickers, the loan shark victims, the installment house wolves,
The jugglers in sand and wood who smooth their hands along the mold that casts the frame of your motor-car engine,
The metal polishers, solderers, and paint spray hands who put the final finish on the car,
The riveters and bolt-catchers, the cowboys of the air in the big city, the cowhands of the Great Plains, the ex-convicts, the bellhops, redcaps, lavatory men—
The union organizer with his list of those ready to join and those hesitating, the secret paid informers who report every move toward organizing,
The house-to-house canvassers, the doorbell ringers, the good-morning-have-you-heard boys, the strike pickets, the strikebreakers, the hired sluggers, the ambulance crew, the ambulance chasers, the picture chasers, the meter readers, the oysterboat crews, the harborlight tenders—who knows the people?
Who knows this from pit to peak? The people, yes. . . .
“You do what you must—this world and then the next-—one world at a time.”
The grain gamblers and the price manipulators and the stock-market players put their own twist on the text: In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread.
The day’s work in the factory, mill, mine—the whistle, the bell, the alarm clock, the timekeeper and the paycheck, your number on the assembly line, what the night shift says when the day shift comes—the blood of years paid out for finished products proclaimed on billboards yelling at highway travelers in green valleys—
These are daily program items, values of blood and mind in the everyday rituals of the people. . . .
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
There are women beyond purchase.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise.
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?
In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for
keeps, the people march:
“Where to? what next?”
—Carl Sandburg