by Carl Sandburg

Many ways to say good night.

Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July
      spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue
      and then go out.

Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack mushrooming a white pillar.

Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying a baritone that crosses lowland 
cottonfields to razorback hill.

It is easy to spell good night.
            Many ways to spell good night.

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This poem is in the public domain.

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To celebrate the 4th of July, I chose to share this Carl Sandburg’s poem instead of trying to come up with my own.

I learned of Carl Sandburg as a child in Chicago. The first part of this poem reminds me of fireworks over the city, imagining what it was like downtown to see them at Navy Pier. As a kid, I’d lay atop my dresser, (…I was six or seven…) and look out the windows in the corner of my room, watching the fireworks display from a near by forest preserve.

Happy Independence Day, USA!