Sunday, June 10, 2018

letters from God























I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his
                            own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of
                            the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds
                            the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man
                            following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the
                            wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and
                            composed before a million universes.


And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about
                            God and about death.)


I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not
                            in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than
                            myself.


Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and
                            each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own
                            face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is
                            sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er
                            I go
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.






Walt Whitman
Song of Myself, 48
photo:  Peter Bowers