Your western heads here cast on money, You are the two that fade away together, Partners in the mist. Lunging buffalo shoulder. Lean Indian face, We who come after where you are gone Salute your forms on the new nickel. You are To us: The past. Runners On the prairie: Good-by.
Carl Sandburg wrote “A Coin” about the old American nickel that showed a Native American profile on one side and a buffalo on the other. The speaker sees those two images as paired ghosts of the frontier—fading together, “partners in the mist.” The details are sharp, like “lunging buffalo shoulder”…
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