Walking the Walt Whitman

Walking the Walt Whitman

The blades of grass
With veins like mine
Which flow forever, the end of time
Will never come, it flows forever

These blades of grass
Don’t grow all over
They grow to a point
Where asphalt meets dirt
Where old meets new
Where metal and bark no longer embrace in soil

But wait, what’s this?
A weed grows through the cracks
Of the sidewalk, and beauty it certainly does not lack
The beginning of a walk from New Jersey to Philly
Over the long gray bridge
Where birds hang over head from wires connecting
One side of a river to another side of us,
One side where we start and one side where we finish.

I start in New Jersey, and I finish in the city of brotherly love
Where taxi cabs take the spots of mini vans to and fro
And it’s always people going to and fro.
Whether they’re going to work
Whether they’re buying groceries
Whether they’re picking up a friend from the airport
Whether they’re driving by me on the bridge.

Where weather and attitudes don’t vary like they say they do
Where in reality so many people are similar,
Tied to each other through the hustle and bustle
Lost between each other in the hustle and bustle
Where people see each other but only as an object on its way to work.

But as I continue to walk across the bridge I see green after green escaping
From the tiresome load that was placed on its back
But the roots from a side push through the metal
And grow in secret lines and chains to link them all together
Where the hustle and bustle of street cars
And the men walking over head does not stop them from growing farther over.

All this green which started at one time on one side,
Now crosses over the obstacles to reach the other.
Pushing over to reach each other
Every several blocks, of sidewalk cement
The green pops up
Roots some how running through pure cement.

And these little leaves, of plants alone
Would never make it, if not for brothers at home
Who reach out under trouble, and branch out to their brother
As he crosses through all of his trouble.

But he is not alone, he passes together
With brethren who connect him to another
Where mini vans and soccer moms
Are always near, but he crosses together
To reach the side of taxi cabs and brotherly love.

And now that I have reached the end
I make a bet with myself.
If they dug up this bridge in fifty years time
They would find a continuous network of roots,
Connecting New Jersey to Philly,
From dirt to dirt through it travels through metal.
Where one side is naturally connected to the other
Where everything there is connected to here.