To Certain Journeymen
To Certain Journeymen - meaning Summary
Death as Everyday Work
Sandburg addresses undertakers and grave workers, treating their work with calm respect and plainspoken empathy. The poem normalizes death as a routine craft, showing that whether burials are mechanized or done by hand the essential task and secrecy remain the same. It acknowledges both the solemn whispers of farewell and the ordinary laughter of everyday life, presenting funeral labor as honest, necessary, and devoid of fear or sentimentality.
Read Complete AnalysesUndertakers, hearse drivers, grave diggers, I speak to you as one not afraid of your business. You handle dust going to a long country, You know the secret behind your job is the same whether you lower the coffin with modern, automatic machinery, well-oiled and noiseless, or whether the body is laid in by naked hands and then covered by the shovels. Your day's work is done with laughter many days of the year, And you earn a living by those who say good-by today in thin whispers.
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