Pool
Out of the fire Came a man sunken To less than cinders, A tea-cup of ashes or so. And I, The gold in the house, Writhed into a stiff pool.
Carl Sandburg
Out of the fire Came a man sunken To less than cinders, A tea-cup of ashes or so. And I, The gold in the house, Writhed into a stiff pool.
Carl Sandburg’s “Pool” reads like a quiet, haunted aftermath. A man comes out of fire so diminished that he is almost nothing—just “a tea-cup of ashes or so.” That homely measurement makes the loss feel close and real rather than grand.
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