Nothing Like Us Ever Was

Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind

Carl Sandburg 

The past is a bucket of ashes. 

 1

 The woman named Tomorrow
 sits with a hairpin in her teeth
 and takes her time
 and does her hair the way she wants it
 and fastens at last the last braid and coil
 and puts the hairpin where it belongs
 and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
 My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
 What of it? Let the dead be dead.

 2

 The doors were cedar
 and the panels strips of gold
 and the girls were golden girls
 and the panels read and the girls chanted:
  We are the greatest city,
  the greatest nation:
  nothing like us ever was.

 The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
 Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
 where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
  We are the greatest city,
  the greatest nation,
  nothing like us ever was.

 3

 It has happened before.
 Strong men put up a city and got
  a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
 to warble: We are the greatest city,
   the greatest nation,
   nothing like us ever was.

 And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
 there were rats and lizards who listened
  … and the only listeners left now
  … are … the rats … and the lizards.

 And there are black crows
 crying, “Caw, caw,"
 bringing mud and
sticks building a
nest over the words
carved on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
 We are the greatest city,
 the greatest nation:
 nothing like us ever was.

The only singers now are crows crying, “Caw, caw,"
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are … the rats … and the lizards.

4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.

And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.