"Lackwanna Twilight" from Honey and Salt by Carl Sandburg (1963)

At the conclusion of his profile of his life in the Aug./Sept. 2010 issue of Irish America magazine, the late actor/playwright Jason Miller excitedly pulled a volume of poems off his shelf and reads aloud a poem to the interviewer, Robert Currin. The volume Mr. Miller selected was Honey and Salt by three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carl Sandburg, and the poem was titled Lackawanna Twilight.

The Scranton and Wilkes-Barre (misspelled in the poem) references occur in the second stanza of Lackawanna Twilight:

"Miner with dinner buckets and
headlamps, state constabulary on
horses, guns in holsters, Scranton,
Wilkesbarre, the Lackawanna Trail.

Honey and Salt by Carl Sandburg is available to borrow from the Lackawanna County Library System; to place a hold, click here. You can also read Lackawanna Twilight on page 4 of the online version of the Jason Miller profile from Irish America by clicking here.