Countersong to Walt Whitman

1

There once was a virgin wilderness.
Trees and land without deeds or fences.
There once was a perfect wilderness.
Many years ago. Long before the ancestors of our ancestors.
The plains would play with galloping buffalo.
The endless coastlines would play with pearls.
The rocks let loose diamonds from their wombs.
And the hills played with goats and gazelles . . .

The breeze would swirl through clearings in the woods
heavy with the bold play of deer and birch trees
filling the pores of evening with seed.
And it was a virgin land filled with surprises.
Wherever a clod of earth touched a seed
all of a sudden there grew a sweet-smelling forest.
At times it was assaulted by a frenzy of pollen
squeezing out the poplars, the pines, the fir trees,
and pouring out the night and landscapes in clusters.
And there were caverns and woods and prairies
teeming with brooks and clouds and animals.

6

O Walt Whitman, your sensitive beard
was a net in the wind!
It throbbed and filled with ardent figures
of sweethearts and youths, of brave souls and farmers,
of country boys walking to creeks,
of rowdies wearing spurs and maidens wearing smiles,
of the hurried marches of numberless beings,
of tresses or hats . . .
And you went on listening
road after road,
striking their heartstrings
word after word.
O Walt Whitman of guileless beard,
I have come through the years to your red blaze of fire!

9

For
what has a great undeniable poet been
but a crystal-clear pool
where a people discover their perfect
likeness?
What has he been
but a deep garden
where all men recognize themselves
through language?
And what
but the chord of a boundless guitar
where the fingers of the people play
their simple, their own, their strong and
true, innumerable song?
For that’s why you, numerous Walt Whitman, who saw and ranted
just the right word for singing your people,
who in the middle of the night said

I
and the fisherman understood himself in his slicker
and the hunter heard himself in the midst of his gunshot
and the woodcutter recognized himself in his axe
and the farmer in his freshly sown field and the gold
panner in his yellow reflection on the water
and the maiden in her future town
growing and maturing
under her skirt
and the prostitute in her fountain of gaiety
and the miner of darkness in his steps beneath his homeland . . .
When the tall preacher, bowing his head
between his two long hands, said

I
and found himself united with the foundryman and the salesman
with the obscure traveler in a soft cloud of dust
with the dreamer and the climber,
with the earthy mason resembling a stone slab,
with the farmer and the weaver,
with the sailor in white resembling a handkerchief . . .
And all the people saw themselves
when they heard the word

I
and all the people heard themselves in your song
when they heard the word

I, Walt Whitman, a kosmos,
of Manhattan the son . . . !
Because you were the people, you were I,
and I was Democracy, the people’s family name,
and I was also Walt Whitman, a kosmos,
of Manhattan the son . . . !

15

And now
it is no longer the word

I
the accomplished word
the password to begin the world.
And now
now it is the word
we.
And now,
now has come the hour of the countersong.
We the railroad workers,
we the students,
we the miners,
we the peasants,
we the wretched of the earth,
the populators of the world,
the heroes of everyday work,
with our love and our fists,
enamored of hope.
We the white-skinned,
the black-skinned, the yellow-skinned,
the Indians, the copper-skinned,
the Moors and dark-skinned,
the red-skinned and olive-skinned,
the blonds and platinum blonds,
united by work,
by misery, by silence,
by the cry of a solitary man
who in the middle of the night,
with a perfect whip,
with a meager wage,
with a gold dagger and an iron face,
wildly cries out

I
and hears the crystal-clear echo
of a shower of blood
that relentlessly feeds on us
ourselves
among the docks receding in the distance
ourselves
below the skyline of the factories
ourselves

in the flower, in the pictures, in the tunnels
ourselves
in the tall structure on the way to orbit
ourselves
on the way to marble halls
ourselves
on the way to prisons
ourselves . . .

17

Why did you want to listen to a poet?
I am speaking to one and all.
To those of you who came to isolate him from his people,
to separate him from his blood and his land,
to flood his road.
Those of you who drafted him into the army.
The ones who defiled his luminous beard and put a gun
on his shoulders that were loaded with maidens and pioneers.
Those of you who do not want Walt Whitman, the democrat,
but another Whitman, atomic and savage.
The ones who want to outfit him with boots
to crush the heads of nations.
To grind into blood the temples of little girls.
To smash into atoms the old man’s flesh.
The ones who take the tongue of Walt Whitman
for a sign of spraying bullets,
for a flag of fire.
No, Walt Whitman, here are the poets of today
aroused to justify you!
“Poets to come! . . . Arouse! for you must justify me.”
Here we are, Walt Whitman, to justify you.
Here we are
for your sake
demanding peace.
The peace you needed
to drive the world with your song.
Here we are
saving your hills of Vermont,
your woods of Maine, the sap and fragrance of your land,
your spurred rowdies, your smiling maidens,
your country boys walking to creeks.
Saving them, Walt Whitman, from the tycoons
who take your language for the language of war.
No, Walt Whitman, here are the poets of today,
the workers of today, the pioneers of today, the peasants
of today,
firm and roused to justify you!
O Walt Whitman of aroused beard!
Here we are without beards,
without arms, without ears,
without any strength in our lips,
spied on,
red and persecuted,
full of eyes
wide open throughout the islands,
full of courage, of knots of pride
untied through all the nations,
with your sign and your language, Walt Whitman,
here we are
standing up
to justify you
our constant companion
of Manhattan!

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