Walt Whitman I look at the beard of my old teacher and friend like a gray spider web of rain I look at his boots covered with American mud In two rocking chairs we sit out on the back porch exchanging words Wherever he looks his gaze causes the shoot of a poem to grow Where is your kosmos? I ask him Where is the Western world one and inseparable? the democracy? the eternal progress? Rain drips down from his eyelids into the constellation of his beard His shoulders bend under the invisible weight That's up to you, he says calmly, I am expecting the main things from you.  |