Whitman

....walked out to the studio, after making diner, after teaching.... the late evening air was so cool, so lovely. No hint of the awful August ahead. The birds were still about. The cat snuck out beside my leg, exited to be loosed on the night world. I had mistakenly left the radio playing softly on a shelf. Even though the dinner in the house was in the oven, the timer about to ding, I thought I'd just flip on one soft desk light and touch some of my tools, revisit the project, one of millions I've had to abandon mid-process to go to a part time job. So I stole it, that soft moment at the bench, not even 4 minutes of time and then it happened. Just liek things like these do, there it was wafting out of the radio... someone reading Whitman.

I froze at the words. I've never payed one whit (no pun intended) of attention to Walt Whitman. I preferred the romantics or Rumi, but I could not ignore it. It sliced my thoughts open with such a quick clean cut. Here try it yourself:

"There's no object so soft that it makes a hub for the wheeled universe. And any man or woman shall stand cool and supercilious before a million universes. And I call to mankind, be not curious about God, for I who am curious about each am not curious about God. No array of terms can say how much I'm at peace about God and about death. I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least, nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the 24 and each moment then, in the faces of men and women. I see God and in my own face in the glass. I find letters from God dropped in the street and everyone is signed by Gods name and I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever. And as to you, death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me."

so beautiful.... guess I had better pay more attention.