Our old home was close to a trail along which ran a remnant of original prairie. Frequent walks there let us delight in the seasons of prairie grasses and flowers, and late July and August would put the best display on. Fortunately, we’ve found some other prairie paths nearby.
Herrick Lake Forest Preserve, DuPage County, Illinois
As we walked along this abundance, our daughter sent a message that Joe Biden had finally reached his decision to leave the race for office. The week would display the honor he has led his public life and how to leave with grace.
A couple days later, as I waited for a haircut, my barber had a copy of Leaves of Grass. I read through some of I Celebrate Myself which I remember reading in high school. Walt Whitman lived in Washington and would often see President Lincoln riding his horse or in his buggy. After the assassination, he wrote the beautiful When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. So when lilacs bloom in the spring, I think Lincoln and of my mother who loved these flowers that bloom near Mothers Day and which I’d sometimes clip and bring to Florida when I’d visit her at that time. Now perhaps when the lilac-colored wild bergamot blooms, I’ll think of Biden’s leave of grace.
Have you reckoned a thousand acres much?
Have you reckoned the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun . . . . there are millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand . . . . nor look through the
eyes of the dead . . . . nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.
I have heard what the talkers were talking . . . . the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
. . . .
Walt Whitman, from I Celebrate Myself in Leaves of Grass 1855