A shower-clean sun-dappled morning in our small back yard. Goldfinches cover the feeders, haphazardly spilling seeds at the base of the post, around which squirrels, mourning doves, and one male cardinal share the wealth. Then two chipmunks literally gambol across the clover, and our resident woodchuck shuffles his weight from around the edge of the fence. The scene, enhanced with rain-cleared colors and the musical score of the flighty finches, is right out of a Disney movie. I expect to see Thumper and Flower arrive any minute.
It is my fifteen minutes of solitude while my mother naps. I indulge myself with the brightest-hued, ripest, juiciest mango that has ever dripped down my chin and onto my favorite hang-around-the-house t-shirt.
Now, if those moments had extended far into the day, if I had hours in which to daydream, ponder, imagine, I might have come up with something I’d feel passionate enough to write about. But that’s not how my days go.
When I check my email just before my mother wakens, I find this poem, sent as one of Jim Culleny’s daily offerings. and it strikes me as just right. For me. For today. For the todays still to come.
Trippers and Askers Surround Me
From: Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet….the effect upon me of my early
life….of the ward and city I live in….of the
nation,
The latest news….discoveries, inventions,
societies….authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, business,
compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman
I love,
The sickness of one of my folks – or of myself….or
ill-doing….or loss or lack of money….or
depressions or exhaltations,
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle,
unitary,
Looks down, is erect, bends an arm on an impalpable
certain rest,
Looks with it’s sidecurved head, curious what will
come next,
Both in and out of the game, and watching and
wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through
fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments…I witness and wait.
5
I believe in you my soul….the other I am must not
abase itself to you,
And you must not be abased to the other.
Loafe with me on the grass….loose the stop from your
throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want,….not custom or
lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.