Overread at Booth 3: Poems of the Day - Carl Sandburg's "Monotone" and After

After Carl Sandburg’s “Monotone”

Carl told me that a face I know is beautiful

with fire of gold and sea and sky and rain,

But what if the face is detached from my brain?

That is to say, what if the circuits break?

With age, that old demon, crawling through the grey

matter with a pickaxe to separate the synapse …

and cause my recognition of my beloved’s face to lapse,

and what if I see her one bright morning,

with love her her eyes, in that new day dawning,

and the sun has set already on my knowing,

and she is just another stranger in my room,

what then?  Will the sun and sea be naught but bleak and gloom?

MR

2020-0417