“On the Beach at Night Alone”
by
Walt Whitman
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
of the universes and of the future.
A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in
different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the
brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any
globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
― Wendell Berry
| Without |
| The world will keep trudging through time without us When we lift from the story contest to fly home We will be as falling stars to those watching from the edge Of grief and heartbreak Maybe then we will see the design of the two-minded creature And know why half the world fights righteously for greedy masters And the other half is nailing it all back together Through the smoke of cooking fires, lovers’ trysts, and endless Human industry— Maybe then, beloved rascal We will find each other again in the timeless weave of breathing We will sit under the trees in the shadow of earth sorrows Watch hyenas drink rain, and laugh. |
Myriad Ways 