Honey and Salt
Authors: Carl Sandburg
Love Is a Deep and a Dark and a Lonely
Anecdote of Hemlock for Two Athenians
The Evening Sunsets Witness and Pass On
Kisses, Can You Come Back Like Ghosts?
Little Word, Little White Bird
Shadows Fall Blue on the Mountains
Solo for Saturday Night Guitar
Copyright 1953, © 1958, 1960, 1961, 1963 by Carl Sandburg
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information, storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
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ISBN
0-15-642165-8 (Harvest/HBJ pbk.)
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e
ISBN
978-0-544-41693-2
v1.0215
A bag of tricksâis it?
   And a game smoothies play?
If you're good with a deck of cards
or rolling the bonesâthat helps?
If you can tell jokes and be a chum
and make an impressionâthat helps?
When boy meets girl or girl meets boyâ
                what helps?
They all help: be cozy but not too cozy:
be shy, bashful, mysterious, yet only so-so:
then forget everything you ever heard about love
for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn
and it comes as weather comes and you can't change it:
it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came
and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and handsâ
and nothing can be done about itâyou wait and pray.
Is there any way of measuring love?
Yes but not till long afterward
when the beat of your heart has gone
many miles, far into the big numbers.
Is the key to love in passion, knowledge, affection?
All threeâalong with moonlight, roses, groceries,
givings and forgivings, gettings and forgettings,
keepsakes and room rent,
pearls of memory along with ham and eggs.
Can love be locked away and kept hid?
Yes and it gathers dust and mildew
and shrivels itself in shadows
unless it learns the sun can help,
snow, rain, storms can helpâ
birds in their one-room family nests
shaken by winds cruel and crazyâ
they can all help:
lock not away your love nor keep it hid.
How comes the first sign of love?
In a chill, in a personal sweat,
in a you-and-me, us, us two,
In a couple of answers,
an amethyst haze on the horizon,
two dance programs criss-crossed,
jackknifed initials interwoven,
five fresh violets lost in sea salt,
birds flying at single big moments
in and out a thousand windows,
a horse, two horses, many horses,
a silver ring, a brass cry,
a golden gong going ong ong ong-ng-ng,
pink doors closing one by one
to sunset nightsongs along the west,
shafts and handles of stars,
folds of moonmist curtains,
winding and unwinding wips of fogmist.
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How long does love last?
As long as glass bubbles handled with care
or two hot-house orchids in a blizzard
or one solid immovable steel anvil
tempered in sure inexorable weldingâ
or again love might last as
six snowflakes, six hexagonal snowflakes,
six floating hexagonal flakes of snow
or the oaths between hydrogen and oxygen
in one cup of spring water
or the eyes of bucks and does
or two wishes riding on the back of a
morning wind in winter
or one corner of an ancient tabernacle
held sacred for personal devotions
or dust  yes  dust in a little solemn heap
played on by changing winds.
There are sanctuaries
    holding honey and salt.
There are those who
    spill and spend.
There are those who
    search and save.
And love may be a quest
    with silence and content.
Can you buy love?
Sure  every day with money, clothes, candy,
with promises, flowers, big-talk,
with laughter, sweet-talk, lies,
every day men and women buy love
and take it away and things happen
and they study about it
and the longer they look at it
the more it isn't love they bought at all:
bought love is a guaranteed imitation.
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Can you sell love?
Yes you can sell it and take the price
and think it over
and look again at the price
and cry and cry to yourself
and wonder who was selling what and why.
Evensong lights floating black night waters,
a lagoon of stars washed in velvet shadows,
a great storm cry from white sea-horsesâ
these moments cost beyond all prices.
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Bidden or unbidden? how comes love?
Both bidden and unbidden, a sneak and a shadow,
a dawn in a doorway throwing a dazzle
or a sash of light in a blue fog,
a slow blinking of two red lanterns in river mist
or a deep smoke winding one hump of a mountain
and the smoke becomes a smoke known to your own
twisted individual garments:
the winding of it gets into your walk, your hands,
Pass, Friendyour face and eyes.
The doors of the morning must open.
The keys of the night are not thrown away.
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I who have loved morning know its doors.
I who have loved night know its keys.
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There must be a place
a room and a sanctuary
set apart for silence
for shadows and roses
holding aware in walls
the sea and its secrets
gong clamor gone still
in a long deep sea-wash
aware always of gongs
vanishing before shadows
of roses repeating themes
of ferns standing still
till wind blows over them:
great hunger may bring these
into one little room
set apart for silence
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II
There must be substance here
related to old communions of
hungering men and womenâ
brass is a hard lean metal
gold is the most ductile metalâ
they speak to each other not often
they melt and fuse
only in the crucible of this communion
only in the dangers of high momentsâ
they moan as mist before wind
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III
The shuttlings of dawn color go soft
weaving out of the night of black ice
with crimson ramblers
up the latticed ladders of daytime arriving.
The riders of the sea    the long white horses
they send their plungers obedient to the moon
in a dedicated path of foam and rainbows.
The praise of any slow red moonrise should be
                          slow.
There are storm winds who bow down to
                          nothing.
They go on relentless under command and
                          release
sent out to do their hammering whirls of storm.
There are sunset flames inviting prayer and
                          sharing.
There are time pieces having silence between
                          chimes.
Children of the wind keep their childish ways.
The wisps of blue in a smoke wreath are mortal.
The keepers of wisdom testify a heap of ashes
means whatever was there went out burning.
The birdsâare they worth remembering?
Is flight a wonder and one wingtip a
space marvel?
When will man know what birds know?
love is a deep and a dark and a lonely
and you take it deep take it dark