Weekend Ed. Quote ~ Poetry for Independence Day

Good Night

Carl Sandburg

Many ways to spell 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

        in a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields

        to a razorback hill. It is easy to spell good night.

                                     Many ways to spell good night.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day by the Academy of American Poets.