You sang the body electric

You sang the body electric;
we sing the body sinful.

O greybeard, O Walt,

to talk of the white-blow and delirious juice,

the jets of love hot and enormous,

the woman and man,

would at one time cause storm,

now it causes politics.

O father of America, O poet of the body,

how would you observe us?

We who’ve turned flesh to words

and words to wars between

woman and man, between

body and soul, between

history and culture, between

sight and desire.

O Walt, O song of the fires and rains,

the black and the white,

the organ and spirit,

what flag would you raise in the culture war?

I’d think the flag of a Taoist Americana;

a lucid flag

—no, a translucent towel of a Taoist Americana

you’d set upon the sands of the Golden State

to get brown on;

sunbathing, naked, your beard, your masculinity,

the air, the animals, the women and men,

singing the body electric

and soul electric

whilst beyond the world destroys itself

with words

and politics.

O greybeard, O Whitman,

uniting the states of being

in our world of severance.

The world would likely reject you now

with that beard and masculinity,

your body electric,

your body alive

and unapologetically free,

in brazen love-grip with a soul in love with life.

O Walt, O rugged individual,

accountable as much in love as in hatred,

loving love as much as hating hatred.

O wind and rain and surf and saliva,

O sun-bleached body,

O woman, O man, O human soul,

O joy of love-grip and the juices of life.

Your redwood, Walt, my red gum;

your moose, Walt,

my dead dry blazing sky;

your deserts, your canyons,

my Banksia, Walt,

as we all embark on that numinous path

that none can wander for us.