Smoke Stacks

 

A bar of steel—it is only Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man. A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else, And left—smoke and the blood of a man And the finished steel, chilled and blue.  So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again, And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel, A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky; And always dark in the heart and through it, Smoke and the blood of a man. Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary—they make their steel with men.  In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys The smoke nights write their oaths: Smoke into steel and blood into steel; Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men. Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.

Excerpt from "Smoke and Steel" by Carl Sandburg