I have been watching the war map slammed up for advertising in front of the newspaper office. <br />Buttons—red and yellow buttons—blue and black buttons—are shoved back and forth across the map. <br /> <br />A laughing young man, sunny with freckles, <br />Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd, <br />And then fixes a yellow button one inch west <br />And follows the yellow button with a black button one inch west. <br /> <br />(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in a red soak along a river edge, <br />Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling death in their throats.) <br />Who would guess what it cost to move two buttons one inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing to us?<br /><br />Carl Sandburg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/buttons/
