Reading Response 09/08

The Walt Whitman poem is an interesting piece that I believe to be about the present being the means for eternity. In the poem he makes many comparisons of his present world with what he believed to be the future world. Also, he, in a way, puts the reader and himself in the present moment at what are suppose to be different times.

In the first verse Whitman tells us what is on his mind, “And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.” People of Whitman’s future, which would include myself, are present with him during his time. What this one line does is distorts reality, how could I be in the thoughts and meditations of someone who was alive during a time before my grandparents were conceived. Shows that past and future are abstract concepts, and the present is the only true frame of time, since Whitman and the people of his future, my present, were all present at some point of time. If people now and people then are present at some point of time, then those people are eternal.

Second verse Whitman does something with the idea of wholeness.“The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,” he is explaining that everyone will not be here but, they are still present because everyone was, is, or will be a part of this scheme. Which is interesting because, again, how could someone be present at different times at the same time? With that line I believe Whitman wanted us to believe in a connection that binds us all together. If all people are bind together, then I was present in the past and will be present in the future, making me eternal.

However, my favorite part of the poem is what he does right in the middle of it with verses three, four, five and six. He does something almost like a balancing act for a lack of a better term. He uses verse five as his fulcrum where he finally states his question, which he has been hinting at, for the first time. Verses three and four are physical, concrete and visual. While verse six is of an abstract view of the world.

In verses three and four he lets us know that time, place, or distance cannot help in the argument that these ideas is what separates us. He proves his point by comparing his physical world to that of the reader, showing that we experience, will experience, or have experienced the same physical world. Then, in verse five he asked the question, “What is it then between us?” I believe this to be his mid point, or segue, to go from a physical world to an abstract world into verse six.  Verse six he lets us know about his experiences dealing morality, emotions, and feelings stating that we’ve all experienced them. Therefore, it is quite difficult to determine what it is that actually separates us.

Walt Whitman piece was a great thought out poem that was accompanied with a great style. Whitman put himself into future and put the reader into the past. He also showed us that to be human is to be the same as everyone else.