painting of Walt Whitman by Rick Bartow

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love & happiness newsletter

April 9, 2020

The Walt Whitman Issue

 

Miracles

 

Why, who makes much of a miracle?

As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,

Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,

Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,

Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,

Or stand under trees in the woods,

Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,

Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,

Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,

Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,

Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,

Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,

Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;

These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,

The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,

The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the ships with men in them,

What stranger miracles are there?

 

–Walt Whitman

*

This issue is devoted to one of my best friends: Walt Whitman. I read “Song of Myself” when I was 18 or 19 years old and it changed my life. It continues to transform the way I experience and understand the world. I’ve been performing an abridged version of “Song of Myself” for many years. It’s written in the first person, and if you recite it aloud, and feel it and mean it as you say the words, something good happens to you. If you do it often enough, over time, it changes you. A famous line is:

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.”

You could read that line and think: “Walt Whitman thinks that a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars…and that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.” Or you could say it and feel it and mean and believe it to be true. And it will be true for you in that moment.

When I performed the poem in Marfa, Texas, a few years back, I was interviewed on Marfa Public Radio. Here’s a link to that interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D6WmHaSE8&t=237s

Walt Whitman has inspired a LOT of poets. Many have acknowledged their debt to him, including Allen Ginsberg and Pablo Neruda. Here’s a poem I wrote in 2010:

 

Teach me to see, Walt!

 

I was driving up Burnside

and I saw a man standing, waiting for the bus

he was not four feet tall

meanwhile, I was listening to a Modern Scholar lecture, “where great professors teach you!”

a lecture about Walt Whitman

I was on my way to Romeo & Juliet rehearsal

at Catlin Gabel High School

the small man is the center of his own world

there is such infinite variety!

everyone I see is a world

I noticed this man—his seriousness

he is a miracle

and it is a miracle that I see him

and I wished that, like Walt, I could be amazed by everyone I see

I thought to myself: “I’ll write a poem called ‘Teach me to see, Walt!’”

I scrawled a note to myself, while driving, to remind me

that was yesterday

I just looked at the note

and was reminded of a moment that I had forgotten

a moment where I saw this man

and felt something that I wanted to find words for

more than six billion people on this earth (we are told)

each one amazing

each one with their own subjectivity

looking out at the world

seeing it, feeling it

each understanding it in her or his own way

and the world itself—vast!

endless variety

the trees standing

the clouds floating and changing

the frantic swimmers in a drop of blood seen through a microscope

the stars in the night sky

Walt, you taught me a lot about wonder

but I’m still learning how to see

because if I knew how to look at the world with my eyes open and my heart open

if I wasn’t such a sleepwalker

such a daydreamer

wouldn’t my cheeks be always wet with tears?

 

sitting on the couch now

writing down these words

a little while ago a squirrel sat poised on a branch of the old pear tree in the back yard and scratched its head

the squirrel is gone now

those squirrels stay busy!

I guess that’s enough for this poem

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

I’ll close my portion of the newsletter with some great quotes from “Song of Myself”:

 

All truths wait in all things.

*

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,

The scent of these arm-pits, aroma finer than prayer,

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

*

Whoever degrades another degrades me,

And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

*

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me 

If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.

*

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less.

*

This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,

There is no better than it and now.

*

Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy.

*

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God…

*

Perrin Kerns sent a link to an amazing website for a film called Whitman, Alabama:

https://whitmanalabama.com

In it, many of the sections of “Song of Myself” are read by a wonderful array of human beings. The accompanying texts about the people are deeply moving.

*

Here’s a story from Oregon’s Poet Laureate, Kim Stafford:

 

How could I not love Whitman, as his poetry saved my father’s life? It was the spring of 1942, and my dad was interned as a conscientious objector in a small town in western Arkansas. One Sunday, he and two pacifist friends were surrounded by a mob, threatened for their perceived “support of Hitler,” and someone shouted “Get a rope!” As the sentiment that these three “slackers” should be strung up rippled through the crowd, the decision turned–improbably–on whether poetry had to rhyme. One piece of evidence seized by a hothead in the crowd was a poem written by my dad’s friend Chuck, was a poem Chuck had written–which didn’t rhyme. “That’s not a poem,” the hothead shouted. “It doesn’t rhyme!”     

“And you, what are you holding there!” My father held out his copy of Leaves of Grass, which he had been reading.     

“I’ll show you what poetry sounds like,” the hothead shouted, and he open the book to read a passage at random…but soon his voice trailed off. “Well I don’t know what that is, but it aint poetry,” he muttered.     

This pause allowed time for someone in the crowd (“a saint,” my father said) to shout “Call the Sheriff!” And when the sheriff arrived, he cooled things down, and drove my father and his friends away to safety.     

So, if Whitman’s poetry had rhymed, my father would have become a statistic, and I would not be here, reading the story of this encounter in my father’s book, Down in My Heart: Peace Witness in Wartime.

–Kim Stafford