| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Cornhuskers. 1918. |
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| 41. Jabberers |
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| I RISE out of my depths with my language. | |
| You rise out of your depths with your language. | |
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| Two tongues from the depths, | |
| Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike, | |
| Fling their staccato tantalizations | 5 |
| Into a wildcat jabber | |
| Over a gossamer web of unanswerables. | |
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| The second and the third silence, | |
| Even the hundredth silence, | |
| Is better than no silence at all | 10 |
| (Maybe this is a jabber too—are we at it again, you and I?) | |
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| I rise out of my depths with my language. | |
| You rise out of your depths with your language. | |
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| One thing there is much of; the name men call it by is time; into this gulf our syllabic pronunciamentos empty by the way rockets of fire curve and are gone on the night sky; into this gulf the jabberings go as the shower at a scissors grinder’s wheel…. | |
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