Gosh I love the last day of May. Forget about the fact that the weather is gorgeous and the flowers are, um, whatever. Today has a much more special meaning to me than sunshine and pollen. For today, my friends, is Walt Whitman's Birthday.
WWWWD?
- A poem by Bry
I imagine myself walking, climbing, treading the mountains
I am one man hiking his way to the top, to the peak of all peaks!
What lies in the distance is an unknown, an always known,
A question we all must ask.
What would Walt Whitman do
At the top of the mountain?
Would he stand there and laugh at the sky?
Would he fly off like a bird to the future of earth?
Would he sit for a spell, and just cry?
What would Walt Whitman do
Dear friends all around me?
Would he become one with the grass and the moon?
Would Walt breathe the air of ancestors, long gone, never forgotten
Or hideout in the universe's shed.
Walt Whitman, my friend, oh what would you do
If the mountain itself crumbled under you?
If the world turned to dust and left all of us,
Tell me what would you do, dear Walt Whitman?
"We're connected," he said, "You and me, on this thread,
This thread between space, between blurs.
If you tug on my beard, ancient rhymes will be cleared
From my mouth, to the page, to your WORD."
Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman, oh what would you do?
"Come with me. I will show you..."
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On The Beach At Night Alone
- A poem by Walt Whitman
| On the beach at night alone, |
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| As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song, |
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| As I watch the bright stars shining--I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future. |
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| A vast similitude interlocks all, |
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| All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids, |
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| All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same, |
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| All distances of place, however wide, |
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| All distances of time--all inanimate forms, |
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| All Souls--all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds, |
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| All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes--the fishes, the brutes, |
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| All men and women--me also; |
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| All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages; |
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| All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe; |
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| All lives and deaths--all of the past, present, future; |
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| This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them. |
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Happy birthday, brother.
To read last year's birthday wishes, click here.
