Just, Cause 04: Individuality and Character

Song of Myself, 51

This is a stanza of the poem where I paraphrased a short part.

Does reading poetry feel outside your comfort zone? Ask yourself why? Reflect. I hope it uplifts the reader. As the street artist Banksy once put it: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Art is valuable because it invites opportunities to consider and get to know what we see as different, unusual, and strange. Today, Read poetry.

Walt Whitman

1819 – 1892

The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?

Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute?longer.)

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with?his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

This poem is in the public domain.?