Last answers - Carl Sandburg

I wrote a poem on the mist
And a woman asked me what I meant by it.
I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist, how

pearl and grey of it mix and reel,

And change the drag shanties with lighted lamps at eve-

ning into points of mystery quivering with color.

I answered:

The whole world was mist once long ago and some day

it will all go back to mist,

Our skulls and lungs are more water than bone and tissue
And all poets love dust and mist because all the last

answers

Go running back to dust and mist.