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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Two Neighbors

Carl Sandburg

Faces of two eternities keep looking at me.
One is Omar Khayam and the red stuff
     wherein men forget yesterday and to-morrow
     and remember only the voices and songs,
     the stories, newspapers and fights of today.
One is Louis Cornaro and a slim trick
     of slow, short meals across slow, short years,
     letting Death open the door only in slow, short inches.
I have a neighbor who swears by Omar.
I have a neighbor who swears by Cornaro.
                                   Both are happy.
Faces of two eternities keep looking at me.
                                   Let them look.
Online text © 1998-2009 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Chicago Poems | Henry Holt & Company, 1916
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