Because I find, 20 years after university, that his words are more alive in my head than then. Because we are both 37 though he is also much older and dead. Because he wrote this;
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.and continues, asking
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much?
have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
Writers who follow nature rather than generic conventions, who try to stay true to rhythms of their own, mean much to me at the moment. I'm stuck in full second novel crisis mode and need to find my own path, and to accept being lost for a while. (If only it were as easy to feel comfortable about as it is to type!)
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