For the Action Drive I have selected a short poem by the popular American poet, Carl Sandburg. One critic notes that Sandburg’s style “gives him entry into steel mills and mean streets, into shacks along the railroad, into the hearts of obscure people to whom he feels allegiance.”
Sandburg himself wanted to write “sentences truly alive, with verbs quivering.” See what you think in the following selection, “Prayers of Steel.”
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.
Let me pry loose old walls.
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together.
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders.
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through
blue nights into white stars.