WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

WALT WHITMAN IS DEAD

Where are you now?

Uncle?

Poet?

Walt?

Old man, child of the Long Island

Free verse son of America,

Teacher & government work-man?

?Human – Being?

Citizen

Man? Mind of the spirit

Spirit, in the flesh

Where have you gone?

Disappeared

Now a ghost

Among the leaves,

The rest.

Uncle,

I see your name written in

School books and upon the wind

And within the rain,

And I still hear your songs fill the air

In the forests & the city streets

Body ? Electric.

But father?

Uncle?

Where are you now?

Where have you been?

Gone, gone away from

What you loved most, the land

Yet buried beneath the green

Green meadows, valleys & time

Of ages.

Meditating within the oldest of trees

Silent thru out new ages.

For a book is merely paper

But a voice must ask or say

Invoke yea and awaken…