Begin Again with Whitman

Return

I stop somewhere waiting for you,

a few paces from reason.

Like the morning glory, I remember

glorifying the gilded blue of new

spreading welcome.

Giddiness overshadowed

by beckoning back to day’s end,

by collapse into creases

the sepal skirt that hemmed

me to the skies of us.

I remember how to decay, a beginning.

I stop waiting for you somewhere.

~ LCMH

This poem, which borrows the final line of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" for a first line, is a finalist in David Lehman's column "Next Line, Please" of The American Scholar. You can vote for any of the six finalists at: https://theamericanscholar.org/i-stop-somewhere-waiting-for-you/#.WAqAVmWTRBY (But you must vote in poetic form!)