Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Blue button

This is a blue button, very hard to move from its place, please read this anti-war poem by an outstanding american poet and musician.



I have been watching the war map slammed up for
advertising in front of the newspaper office.
Buttons—red and yellow buttons—blue and black buttons—
are shoved back and forth across the map.

A laughing young man, sunny with freckles,
Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd,
And then fixes a yellow button one inch west
And follows the yellow button with a black button one
inch west.

(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in
a red soak along a river edge,
Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling
death in their throats.)
Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one
inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper
office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing
to us?

Carl Sandburg, "Buttons".

2 comments:

Stargazer said...

I see yin and yang in the button, which I think is relevant.

runnerfrog said...

To be completely honest, I didn't saw that. But it resembles that a bit, now that you mentioned.
Thanks.

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