sw00779v-35.poem33

Venturings

  [ Originally written in 1973, the following poem is an imaginary
conversation I had with Walt Whitman.  It begins hyperbolically
but laugh at it if you are so moved.  It appears I felt a need to 
bolster my courage. ] 



 Words for Walt


1

Walt, I am thirty-two
and am making my charge at your supremacy.

I have passed through Eliot and Roethke
and have troubled Auden,  
and have read a thousand more,
and have learned and loved them all.
They have been to me
as the phases of the moon,
the vagaries of sunlight,
the challengings of caves.

It is time again to sum things up,
for transformation.
We have turned another century,
yet much much more;
we have entered the country of Hope--
all your dreams, sweet Walt, all your dreams!
They are past and ever present
but can not be changed,
and for all you felt and yearned,
you could not feel as I can,
you could not yearn as I.
It is time again for seeing,
and today, Walt, I am ready,
and so, Walt, is today.

If in the grasses of evil and good,
you in your grey beard stand,
sensible, attractive, gathering, giving,
all the more must I,
all the more our race.

It is time for transformation
to a life we can barely dream of,
or death;
it will not come again.

If we touch the soil rightly,
and the waters, the air,
what passages, what births!
what mastery of time!


2

Oh human ageless Walt,
how much we are alike,
words hanging on words, lists, parallel constructions;
and yet how different,
your rhythms not my rhythms,
your thoughts not my thoughts:
and yet again alike,
in our hearts.

Much that I have written, Walt, is dead;
the best that I have written is but preamble.
Sleep with me.

This woods we are approaching,
let us dance and greet it.
How much we are alike!


3

'uckin' root!
Thought I'd missed it!
Lift me.
Blast it, scraped my knee.
You'd think I lost my coordination!
Now why did I--
hey, Walt,
do you think--
beetled elm!
They're dying on us, you know.
Look, maybe we should sit a while.
There.
Huh, an oriole!
Where is it?
Again.  There!
And its elms--
will we miss its swinging nest,
its bright colors and bright song,
its special grace?
Walt--hmm, that breeze feels good--
I love the touch of your rough hand.


4

Inside,
most of this day,
this fifty-degree March 12th--
student union, office, library--
inside,
writing these words.
And now I am in my apartment.
It doesn't seem right.
For neither as I would want all buildingsdown,
should I want them foolishly lived in.
And I have done so.
Today, I think, I have done so.
The sun scattered its pleasures for my skin
and I ignored them--
the poet and his paper and his pen;
vain beyond the moment's need,
I stayed inside.

Is it no wonder I
wonder,
am surprised
at myself,
am a joker
full of sour puns.

Somewhere, on the proud stem of a rose,
sucking aphids rock;
somewhere, on the walkway to a mansion,
gray and yellow snow.

Inside--
the habits that block awareness,
the truths one tries to forget,
the images that enlighten.


5

And now I hear you asking me,
"What are you doing, young man?"
And again,
"What do you seek so pensive and silent?
What do you need, camerado?
Dear son, do you think it is love?
Listen, dear son. . . ."

And so I do:
to the early robin honoring his love and possessing his land,
to the thawing grass as it struggles back to green,
to the teenage girls giggling,
to the teenage boys yelling,
their leather oxfords rapidly beating the sidewalk,
to the hummings of cars and the grumbles of buses and trucks,
to the ticking ticking ticking of my wife's white plastic clock,
to the whispered ticks of my too-fast Timex watch.

But, nothing.
Yes, yes, it is love:
a falling away from one, or so it sometimes seems,
and a possible falling,
   unevenly, into another,
but always behind my primary love--what I am doing here, the love I have for
   words.

That, Walt, is why, at this uncanny juncture,
my body and my spirit speak to
   you.


6

An end.
I have come too close.

The clouds ride high, and thin, through the leaves;
where the sun has rested long, the air shimmers.
Sometimes, a butterfly passes;
sometimes, a bee;
sometimes--there's a--I--

oh hell, I am just . . . tired, pale tired.
Here it is, 1973, and people's thoughts
still haven't opened enough, haven't
   cleared enough.

So many of us
(though few by comparison), so many of us
must hide,
for fear of losing our jobs,
for fear of losing respect,
for fear of losing
our lives.

An end:
in the flowers at my feet,
in the stones of buildings,
in rivers of every description,
in the turning of every wheel,
from the mouth:
an end.

If I have gone too far,
I have gone too far,
I will go
farther
still.

It can not be helped.
The deaths I have suffered,
the deaths so many yet suffer--

John, Bill, Anne. . . .

oh the warped communications of loved ones,
the black ideas that have warped love,
have provided answers where answers can not yet be had.
An end.


7

A beginning:
a movement toward self, toward community,
where every man and woman can walk as is,
possessed of a sensibility the equal of light, the power and softness of light.


8

The oriole?
It is night, night, without
orange.


9

Settle.
The sounds of the woods invite us,
but we must not move,
not even toward
each other,
especially not toward
each other;
we must keep our energies pure;
the time is not yet right
to mingle them.
I leave you.

Star above me,
constantly changing,
in color, in brightness, in position, in strength,
probably dead,
a black space
or a great dark cloud,
what moments of what eon
of your boiling spirit
hold me?
What warmth,
what variousness,
traveled
their thousands of years
through static cold?
who else
this new moon night
enjoys you?
who else considers
the ultimate trip
of riding the conquering edge
of your revelation?
encourages you
to make a wish
on him?

Starlight,
imperceptibly present
on my palm,
ghost,
welcome.
What you tell me,
I rejoice in;
what you keep from me,
I rejoice in,
Where there is mystery,
there is wonder--
starlight,
I have just stepped back from myself,
and see me here,
sitting,
babbling like a fool,
and realize
I am often like this.
Foolishness
is such a pleasant vice:
games
for one,
fantasies;
renewed
through them,
I am given
depth,
am given
breadth.
The breeze 
awakens again;
and an oak leaf
becomes
a fluttering eyelid,
and you

what I do not want,
the eye
of a come-on girl.
What you tell me,
I lament;
what you keep from me,
I lament as well.


10

Midnight, and after, and after.
Knowing, and not knowing.
Waiting.

Sleep.  Dreams.

With the rubbing of my hands,
the orange sky and the orange
leaves separate,
the waves on Mystic Lake blossom and cry;
I touch
the nearest tree.


11

Snow.  Sleet.
All day, all day,
snow, sleet.

I had lived inside my cocoon, my cottage,
for nineteen years,
but now no longer.

The birds about are hardy ones.

In the streets of my self
I dance,
in the streets of others
I dance;
in the streets of others
I buckle
in
regret.

Seasons next to seasons,
poeple next to people,
gods next to gods,
I mix with what I am.

If you, Walt, blessed this earth,
I will bless it again.


=

3-19-73
Brian Salchert


     [ Since that date some minor revisions of "Words for Walt"
        have been made.
        It was originally published on the 2 center pages of the 
        May/June 1973 issue of Milwaukee's GPU News. ]



-
Brian A. J. Salchert