Archive Home Page Subj: On the edge of Nature's dreams#3 94-10-18 22:36:34 EDT
From: Joe Uhrig
"My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,
On every step bunches of ages,
and larger bunches between the steps,
All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount.
Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,
Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,
And took my time, and took no harm from the fetid carbon.
Long I was hugg'd close - long and long.
Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like
cheereful boatman,
or room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.
Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me,
My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.
For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths
and deposited it with care.
- Walt Whitman
Song of Myself