screw contributing a verse...or anything!
I am mad at Uncle Walt (Whitman). Why do his poems, even the sad ones, seem elegaic and lovely? Why didn't he ever write about what it's like to be hundreds of miles away from family and homesick?! To work and try and forget the things that are bothering; to walk with a friend and talk and seem to make sense of it; to finally resolve to be content with a movie, only to have Scout and Boo Radley bail too, and my computer freeze. Why couldn't he have written a poem, cleverly masking the way that communtiy is supposed to work, and me in it; how it's all supposed to make sense.
And then I find this. Stupid poem.
"Oh Me! O life!"
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the
foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the
struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O
life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
~ Walt Whitman
And then I find this. Stupid poem.
"Oh Me! O life!"
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the
foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the
struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O
life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
~ Walt Whitman
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