Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918.

85. Garden Wireless

HOW many feet ran with sunlight, water, and air?

What little devils shaken of laughter, cramming their little ribs with chuckles,

Fixed this lone red tulip, a woman’s mouth of passion kisses, a nun’s mouth of sweet thinking, here topping a straight line of green, a pillar stem?

Who hurled this bomb of red caresses?—nodding balloon-film shooting its wireless every fraction of a second these June days:

Love me before I die;

Love me—love me now.