Thus Whitman's poems stood before me like a model
of delivery when I began to write poems myself:
I mean the oceanic power and rumble that travels through
a Whitman poem-the incantatory syntax, the boundless
affirmation. In those years, truth was elusive--as was my
own faith that I could recognize and contain it. Whitman
kept me from the swamps of a worse uncertainty, and I
lived many hours within the lit circle of his certainty, and
his bravado. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew
the doors themselves from their jambs! And there was the
passion which he invested in the poems. The metaphysical
curiosity! The oracular tenderness with which he viewed
the world--its roughness, its differences, the stars, the
spider- nothing was outside the range of his interest. I
reveled in the specificity of his words. And his faith-that
kept my spirit buoyant surely, though his faith was with-
out a name that I ever heard of. Do you guess I have some
intricate purpose? Well I have ... for the April rain has,
and the mica on the side of a rock has.
But first and foremost, I learned from Whitman that
the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter,
and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an
intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and
robust wordiness--wonderful as that part of it is. I
learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but
to speak--to be company. It was everything that was
needed, when everything was needed. I remember the
delicate, rumpled way into the woods, and the weight of
the books in my pack. I remember the rambling, and the
loafing--the wonderful days when, with Whitman,
I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had
a good time.
