My first week at the state pen, I dreamed I flew a helicopter
into the Yard to rescue my students. Naïve I know. But barring that,
couldn’t I at least awaken parts of them that couldn’t be penned?
At 28, I was in love beyond all measure with the written word,
believed it could go anywhere and carry any cargo.
Like your poems, Walt, breaking out of Victorian notions
of prosody and topic, barging through narrow margins,
refusing to be confined by rules not of your making.
Into that prison, where carrying in a pen was considered
sneaking in contraband, I’d bring Leaves of Grass,
disguised as mere words everyone knows
make nothing happen—your unlawful lines, music
that can’t be silenced once it’s broken into the mind,
the heart, the soul. That night before class, I sat on the living
room floor of my tiny apartment, sons sleeping in the next room,
drinking rot gut red and chanting Song of Myself into the air—
your lines stretching to embrace the whole fucking world,
tears escaping my eyes as I felt you near, knew we were lovers
beyond time and gender, beyond the personal, global, and interstellar.
I couldn’t wait for my students to meet you, for you to whisper
in each ear: Never forget, you are the journeywork of stars.