Pearl cobwebs in the windy rain,
in only a flicker of wind,
are caught and lost and never known again.
A pool of moonshine comes and waits,
but never waits long: the wind picks up
loose gold like this and is gone.
A bar of steel sleeps and looks slant-eyed
on the pearl cobwebs, the pools of moonshine;
sleeps slant-eyed a million years,
sleeps with a coat of rust, a vest of moths,
a shirt of gathering sod and loam.
The wind never bothers … a bar of steel.
The wind picks only .. pearl cobwebs .. pools of moonshine.
"Smoke and Steel," Carl Sandburg
[Lake Michigan east of Lake Shore Drive]
