Noon Hour

Carl Sandburg

1878 to 1967

Poem Image

She sits in the dust at the walls 
And makes cigars,
Bending at the bench 
With fingers wage-anxious,
Changing her sweat for the day’s pay. 

Now the noon hour has come, 
And she leans with her bare arms 
On the window-sill over the river,
Leans and feels at her throat 
Cool-moving things out of the free open ways 

At her throat and eyes and nostrils 
The touch and the blowing cool 
Of great free ways beyond the walls