Whitman
sits at his desk at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in
Washington,
D. C. He is forty-six; America seethes beneath his
feet. The
aftermath of the war adheres to the chair, the clock,
the bottoms of
his boots. He can no longer protect his thoughts.
The more he attempts
to obscure them, the more they expose him a restless
flasher--the
pacing and panting of the unborn in him: Words! Words!
Words! as
beautiful and energetic as the sky. And yet he knows
the words and the
war are one. The night before, Venus was in the sky,
large and clear,
brighter than the moist, full moon: A sight beyond
poetry. Can a star
be larger than the earth? Can it throw off so much
light that a new
planet could be discovered? Light breeds light, he
thought, before
dropping off to sleep.
–
Therese Stanton
