I Thought of Whitman

 

I watched the ripples widening on the pond today,

So many, thousands it seemed,

Forming, spreading, meeting,

Merging, resolving

Into the larger pattern.

And I thought of Whitman—those ceaselessly

Widening circumferences of his, so full of life,

So full of energy, so boundless

In their expansion; and I wondered 

Whether we, too, are the rain—our minds,

Perhaps our spirits, if you believe in such a thing—

Widening out

The way Walt said, the way the pond does

As each droplet joins the swirling dance;

Whether we, too, expand and meet and merge,

And if we do—

What then?

 

Jonel Sallee