More visions of America

I must censor myself for not writing in this more often. I've been busy. It's hard. Computer was broken. Blogger was acting up...... basically, I dropped the ball. Shame on me.

Anywho, I was reading again Whitman and pondered and thought of his wonderous lightness. His poems are "more brilliant than the sun."

I don't want to tread upon tired conventions, but somethings are eternal. It is nice when you find wisdom in the words of the old. Whitman's "As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores" so aptly describe every image we have of America.

http://www.bartleby.com/142/152.html

I especially like:

A Nation announcing itself,
I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.

A breed whose proof is in time and deeds;
What we are, we are—nativity is answer enough to objections;
We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,
We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,
We are executive in ourselves—We are sufficient in the variety of ourselves,
We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves;
We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world;
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.

Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.

(O mother! O sisters dear!
If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us;
It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)

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It's so damn unapologetic. So fresh, so surely.
So much to love and so much to hate in George Bush's America.