Every year Emily Dickinson sent one friend <br />the first arbutus bud in her garden. <br /> <br />In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson <br />remembered a friend with the gift of George <br />Washington’s pocket spy-glass. <br /> <br />Napoleon too, in a last testament, mentioned a silver <br />watch taken from the bedroom of Frederick the Great, <br />and passed along this trophy to a particular friend. <br /> <br />O. Henry took a blood carnation from his coat lapel <br />and handed it to a country girl starting work in a <br />bean bazaar, and scribbled: “Peach blossoms may or <br />may not stay pink in city dust.” <br />So it goes. Some things we buy, some not. <br />Tom Jefferson was proud of his radishes, and Abe <br />Lincoln blacked his own boots, and Bismarck called <br />Berlin a wilderness of brick and newspapers. <br /> <br />So it goes. There are accomplished facts. <br />Ride, ride, ride on in the great new blimps— <br />Cross unheard-of oceans, circle the planet. <br />When you come back we may sit by five hollyhocks. <br />We might listen to boys fighting for marbles. <br />The grasshopper will look good to us. <br /> <br />So it goes …<br /><br />Carl Sandburg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/accomplished-facts/
