I can image Carl Sandburg looking out the window at the treetops and being inspired to write this poem. It is from the “Fogs and Fires” section of his Chicago Poems. Like much of Carl Sandburg’s works, this poem is in the public domain. There’s lot of his work available on the Internet; I got this from a site devoted to of all his poems from this book. At the site for the Academy of American Poets, you can find more by Carl Sandburg. And if you’re a Chicagoan, particularly a Northsider, it is easy to imagine yourself walking in his steps for 4646 N. Hermitage is the home where he wrote his Chicago poems. It’s was given landmark status by the City of Chicago.
At a Window
Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!
But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.
by Carl Sandburg
from Chicago Poems
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