627. ENDEAVOR

ENDEAVOR
I wrangled a walk in the woods with Whitman,
that old dowager guy with the beard of white.
He claimed to know nothing about the modern day.
I believed him and said it was all right - the not knowing,
not the day. We traipsed along, past the old Friends Meeting
House on Suydenham Lane. He said he'd stayed there once,
in '58, just to see if they'd take him in. They did. He stayed
four days. Porridge, gruel and oatmeal too. I thought they
were all the same, but he said no, they were pretty different.
It's hard for me to fathom all that. The meaning of '58, for
instance. That's 1858, not 19 or 20 (obviously). But
he rolled it off his tongue as if it were today. That's
a disconcerting possibility. Talking with spirits over a
hundred-year's gap is a very tough endeavor.
-
He said he was me, and I was him, and what
I envisioned he envisioned too and he said
he had the length of my loins and the great
gap of my humanity in his tender vision.
Whew! All that stuff worried me too.
-
It was long before the vision wore out.
I saw him dispersing, falling away,
as we walked - the walk was almost
done, and we really had covered a lot of
ground, both verbally and by geography
too. I recommend it to anyone,
even to you; this walking
with spirits will do.