Call Me Whittier (and I'll Slap You)

I swam one time in Walden Pond, the shrine.
The water wasn't bad, but I detected no transcendence,
Felt no urge to gush the way the famous hermit
There had done. I walk the forest of the bluff
Beneath my house, and do, in fact, grow happier
Among the trees. Their branches now show
Little leaves. The ground is green. My face
Can feel the sun. It's warm, but I'm not up
To spewing lines of rhyming nature treacle,
Such as one could read (if one was paid enough)
In books by guys from Massachusetts, circa 1844.
Instead, I offer lumpy lines, and tell you simply
That these trees, the river, sparkling below, and
All I see across the valley, fallow fields, a highway,
And the sky, which is a brilliant blue, transcend
The dull and ugly things which wait for me,
Uphill, inside my house.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 49 times
Written on 2010-04-09 at 15:18

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