The Whiskey Taster’s Flavor Guide

White Ash

Read 'White Ash' by 'Carl Sandburg' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.

White Ash by Carl Sandburg

 THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice.

She used to keep a houseful of girls in kimonos and three pushbuttons on the front door.

Now she is alone with a parrot and goldfish and two white mice … but these are some of her thoughts:

The love of a soldier on furlough or a sailor on shore leave burns with a bonfire red and saffron.

The love of an emigrant workman whose wife is a thousand miles away burns with a blue smoke.

The love of a young man whose sweetheart married an older man for money burns with a sputtering uncertain flame.

And there is a love … one in a thousand … burns clean and is gone leaving a white ash.…

And this is a thought she never explains to the parrot and goldfish and two white mice.

Form: Free verse Comments

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The Whiskey Taster’s Flavor Guide
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace