poetic faith

thirteen

Like a honeybee you are my work and my food. 
I spend myself flying and dancing to get you. 
In the winter a whole hive of me lives on you.

twelve

When you leave in the morning, my
Internal geometry twists
Helical, and tenses into
A bright coil of potential.

When you return I expect to
Spring up and unloosen, but
Instead the torsion recoils
Inward, the energy dissipates,
I am ashamed of my density,
And I am myself, only smaller.

If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor
    your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic
    geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes--nor
    Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name--the still
    small voice vibrating--America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the
    quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board and inland--
    Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the
    peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart
    pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

Walt Whitman, 'Election Day, November, 1884 '

eleven

If I could make my own Greek urn
I would inscribe this on it:
Someday aliens will mold our plastic for us.