(the misadventures of an expatriate corporate dropout)

Monday, June 9, 2008

poetic pause.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long ...

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

- Walt Whitman
from "Song of Myself" (1855)



for bête de jour, in remembrance of his recently lost Pablo.

8 comments:

B said...

Amen, Walt. And now I want to go get a labrador! :)

La Framéricaine said...

These old farts were tough! Thank you, KiMignonne, for the poetry. I was toying with the idea of posting a poem that I wrote ages ago about new shoes--if I could put my hands on it again. This Whitman post is inspired!

Not long ago I was rereading Emerson's Self Reliance paper and was really just blown away. The only thing that got on my nerves was the "he" this and "he" that, so I just changed it to "she" and it was great!

Hope your countdown is going well!

Randal Graves said...

That Walt sounds like a godless commie pinko. I'm calling DHS.

Non Je Ne Regrette Rien said...

RG-is your middle name McCain?

Ghost Dansing said...

non, je ne regrette rien

Piaf dedicated the song to the French Foreign Legion

Non Je Ne Regrette Rien said...

GD- so she did. Quite a few folks have adopted the song as their own, not just French but British, American and Italian as well. it is quite captivating and conveys a real 'in your face essence' of not looking back! welcome by the way, and do come again!

La Belette Rouge said...

I love Walt!! Was he a PETA member?;-)I so want a dog.

Non Je Ne Regrette Rien said...

sounds like he would have been a founder, LBR.