Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SINGING STEEL, by ELISABETH KUSKULIS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SINGING STEEL, by                    
First Line: I am the gossamer threads of a dream
Last Line: And welded the world with song.
Subject(s): Steel


I am the gossamer threads of a dream
Spun into steel . . . a tower of steel!
Strong as the genius of man, rhythmic as a poem.
Living, intonated steel, tons of delicately tempered steel
Anchored to earth by my own weight . . . I scorn support.
A mile above the sea I stand
And stretch my sinewy height to stab the sky.

My neighbors are mountains --
Old Pike and Evans and their stalwart brothers --
Blue mile after mile, they whisper with stars
On this crest of a continent.
My sinuous strength is a challenge
To their flint and granite.
Their heads are hoary with centuries;
Their ancient fires are dead . . . long dead,
But mine are new, poignant, passionate . . .
From tip to toe I am electric, pulsating steel.
Articulate power courses my veins,
Breathing lyrical lightning to limitless horizons.

From the Great Divide, where the four-way waters
Run down to find the sea, I needle the night.
My words devour space as they flash through the void;
They leap the bars of the great immensity;
They slip softly into the nooks and crannies of loneliness.
I fling my notes at far constellations
And the long lanes of silence bloom with miraculous music.

On the frail filaments of a dream,
Begotten in steel, singing steel, I have spanned stellar arcs.
I have covered the earth with a network of sound
And welded the world with song.





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