I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat of life <br />With something proud on his face, so proud no smash of the jaws, <br />No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end <br />With anything else than the old proud look: <br />Even to the finish, dumped in the dust, <br />Lost among the used-up cinders, <br />This face, men would say, is a flash, <br />Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth, <br />Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years, <br />Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence. <br />Ready for the dust and fire and wind. <br />I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask. <br />A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer, <br />A beaten shape of ashes <br />waiting the sunrise or night, <br />something or nothing, <br />proud-mouthed, <br />proud-eyed gambler.<br /><br />Carl Sandburg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/aztec-mask/
