31 May 2020:
"I onward go, I stop,
With hinged knees and steady hand to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes—poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you." --Whitman, "The Wound Dresser"
One year ago, we celebrated Walt's 200th birthday with joy and optimism. Today, as my country is in such pain and turmoil and the darkness seems unending, I keep thinking about these lines from "The Wound Dresser." Whitman's speaker repeatedly goes to his knees in the face of such pain--an image that resonates so powerfully today--and is determined to do what he can. There, on his knees, he is better able to serve and help, but he is also humbled, in the gesture of seeking supplication and perhaps even of prayer.
He's also not a soldier; he is old, with creaking knees, and arriving after the fight. The fight isn't his, but of course it is.
So yeah...thinking about it a lot today.
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