On The Beach at Night - Happy Father's Day

St. Augustine's Sunset

On the beach at night,

Stands a child with her father,

Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,

Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,

Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,

Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,

And nigh at hand, only a very little above,

Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.

From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,

Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,

Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,

Weep not, my darling,

With these kisses let me remove your tears,

The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,

They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,

Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,

They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,

The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,

The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

The Pleiades, 1885, Elihu Vedder, Oil on Canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,  New York, NY

Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?

Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,

(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,

I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)

Something there is more immortal even than the stars,

(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)

Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter

Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,

Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.

~ Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, first published in the 1871-72 edition)

A Girl Named Fred with the best Father in the Whole World!

I chose this poem because it exemplifies the nature of my relationship with my father to this day. My father spends time with me, encourages me, and calms my fears. Much like the father in this poem he explained life to me with care even when my questions or concerns may have been trite to others. 

Rather than laughing or dismissing the child's concern for Jupiter disappearing 'forever' in the clouds, Whitman portrays a loving, patient and kind father explaining the stars to his child and at the same time strongly suggesting that there are things more immortal even than the stars.... a father's love.

~ I love you daddy, Fred

For the readers who do not know what Pleiades is, it is also called the 'Seven Sisters' or Messier Object 45 (M45) (I prefer Pleiades) and it is an open star cluster in the constellation of Taurus and is visible to the human eye during the night. In Greek Mythology Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione and half sister of Hyades - Electra (mother of Dardanus, the founder of Troy), Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, and Sterope. They were always in pursued of Orion but to no avail because Zeus, the father of the gods, took pity on the ever fleeing sisters and placed them in the heavens as stars out of his reach.

Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now In Hand

Whoever you are, holding me now in hand,   

Without one thing, all will be useless,   

I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,   

I am not what you supposed, but far different.   

 

Пелагея Клубникина

Who is he that would become my follower? 

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?   

   

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps

     destructive;   

You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect

     to be your God, sole and exclusive,   

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,   

The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the

     lives around you, would have to be abandon'd;

Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—

     Let go your hand from my shoulders,   

Put me down, and depart on your way.   

   

Пелагея Клубникина

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,   

Or back of a rock, in the open air,   

(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not—nor

     in company, 

And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or

     dead,)   

But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching

     lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,   

Пелагея Клубникина

Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea,

     or some quiet island,   

Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,   

With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss, 

For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.   

   

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,   

Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,   

Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;   

For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,

And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried

     eternally.   

   

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,   

For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,   

They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will

     certainly elude you,   

Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!

Already you see I have escaped from you.   

 

Пелагея Клубникина

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written

     this book,   

Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,   

Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,   

Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,)

     prove victorious,

Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil,

     perhaps more;   

For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times

     and not hit—that which I hinted at;   

Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

~ Walt Whitman

The poet warns that what is thought of him is but a facade and not reality - "I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,   / I am not what you supposed, but far different".    Pretense and notions about who the writer is must be abandoned and trust in what the author is righting is a must - "The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the /  lives around you, would have to be abandon'd".  The author is conveying the complexity of his thoughts about life and love in a contrived manner and stating that it is difficult to 'know' him, to truly 'know him'. His description of love and relationships is both about physical and spiritual and that is keeping with his usual views on love. 

Whitman is probably also talking about his poetry and his writing as much as he is talking of love. His analogies and almost riddle like lines could easily be about his work, especially given his lines "Nor will my poems do good only--they will do just as much evil, / perhaps more".

I decided to use surreal artist, Пелагея Клубникина, as the artist for this poem. I used this art because I feel that the message Whitman is conveying about love and poetry is timeless and these pieces of art convey in a more contemporary way the same messages.... I hope you enjoy.

A Child Said, What is the Grass?

Reflection, Jeniffer Sams, copyright 2012

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full

hands;

How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it

is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful

green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we

may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe

of the vegetation.

A Simple Leaf, ©ELFoto 2012 ©ELFoto (ElizaBeth Forbes)

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow

zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the 

same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;

It may be you are from old people and from women, and

from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,

And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old

mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

Warmth, Stephanie Wirt, Powhatan, VA

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths

for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men

and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring

taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

What do you think has become of the women and

children?

They are alive and well somewhere;

The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait

at the end to arrest it,

And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and

luckier.

~ Walt Whitman

Whitman uses the imagery of a leaf of grass symbolizing the the pages of his poetry book, the form of his poetry, and a actual grass growing.  The first is a physical and natural meaning. The child in the poem, possibly Whitman's inner child, is asking Whitman what is the meaning of the natural world. Whitman does not have an answer for the child. Whitman's voice is later describing the cyclical nature of grass and how nature continues "onward and outward" in a never ending circle.  Whitman is also speaking metaphorically about his poetry and creativity as being cyclical and ongoing. 

In Paths Untrodden and Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 1868, Albert BierstadtSmithsonian American Art Museum,  Washington, DC

In Paths Untrodden


In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the lite that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures,
profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my soul,
That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I 
would not dare elsewhere,)
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains
all the rest,
Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month of my forty-first year,
I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
To tell the secrets my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.


~Walt Whitman (1819-92)


The Bierstadt painting is breathtaking, quite literally in person at the Smithsonian along with many other American Landscape paintings; however the light and depth of field of this particular painting gives the viewer a moment to feel as if they could step through the canvas and through time into the untrodden America.  


It was Whitman's 41st year of life much like it is about to be mine and he was becoming fully conscious that he had a yearning to do things which he was previously denied by 'all standards' and 'conformities' of his place and time.  He felt he should be more free to express his spiritual and creative self and should have been further along in his self-discovery.  He also had a new understanding of the love of his friends (comrades).  


While Whitman is a man, I can relate to the feeling of an intense yearning to escape your cocoon....  Getting your wings but not quite sure how to use them..... A yearning to fly.... Of learning the true value of your friends... For as my 41st year approaches I have done all these things and my wingspan continues to increase.....