Carl Sandburg

They Ask Each Other Where They Came from

They Ask Each Other Where They Came from - meaning Summary

Intimacy Meets Cosmic Wonder

The poem stages a brief, intimate dialogue where two presences ask about each other’s origins. Using spare, cosmic imagery—river, valley, bowls of sky and stars—the speaker collapses personal relationship and vast creation. The questions blend wonder, affection, and metaphysical puzzlement, turning a loverly exchange into an inquiry about being and chance, captured in a single, compact sequence that emphasizes mystery over answer.

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AM I the river your white birds fly over? Are you the green valley my silver channels roam? The two of us a bowl of blue sky day time and a bowl of red stars night time? Who picked you out of the first great whirl of nothings and threw you here?

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