The prompt for today was to select a very long poem and to distill words from it to create another poem. I chose Song of Myself by Walt Whitman.

Borrowed Song

Houses and rooms full of shelves
are crowded with myself
and know it and like it.

Undisguised and naked, I am mad for the smoke of my own breath–––
my respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the
passing of blood and air through my lungs,
the sound of the belch’d words of my voice
loos’d to the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Read me and you shall possess the origin of all poems:
the sun and your self.
I have heard the talk of my sweet soul––proof of the equanimity
of things silent and hearty and clean,
and I am satisfied.

A loving bed-fellow withdraws, leaving me baskets of
the latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies,
authors old and new, and love.
But they are not Me.
I stand amused and looking with side-curved head,
curious what will come next,

I witness and wait.
I believe in you.

Loaf with me on the grass.
I want the lull.
I like
how we lay––your head upon me––my brother, sister, lover, child.

What is remembrance
but the beautiful uncut hair of graves?
I wish I could die luckier,
new-wash’d and not contain’d between my hat and boots.
I am not earth. I am as immortal and fathomless as myself,
sweet-heart and old maid, lips that have smiled,
eyes that are the begetters of children.

I see the little one in its cradle,
the bushy hill,
the corpse on the granite floor.
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
exclamations of women who buried speech.
I mind the resonance of them.
I come and I depart, roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

Alone,
far in the wilds and mountains, amazed, my eyes settle in my boots
and you should have been with us that day I saw the marriage
of awkwardness and lonesome––dancing and laughing along the beach,
their bodies an unseen temple.

The sun fallsand I do not stop there.

What you express in your eyes seems to me more
than all the print I have read in my life.
I believe and acknowledge the look like an invitation––
Listening close, find its purposes.
I see in them and myself the same old law.

I can eat and sleep with them and hark to the musical rain,
the one-year wife, recovering and happy.
I am old and young, foolish and wise.

Prodigal, you have given me love — therefore I to you give
unspeakable passionate love. I behold your crooked inviting fingers.
I too am of all phases that sleep in each others’ arms.
I am not the poet of virtue. I moisten the roots of all that has grown.
I find a balance. There is no better than it and now.
I believe in seeing, hearing, feeling,
Breast that presses against other breasts, it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss’d, mortal I have ever
touch’d, it shall be you.
I dote on myself, the air tastes good to my palate.
My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach.
Speech is the twin of my vision. With the hush of my lips, I wholly confound the skeptic.

Now I will do nothing but listen,

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of
flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals.
I hear the sound I love––the sound of the human voice.
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of waves,
I lose my breath.

I talk wildly, I have lost my wits..
All truths wait in all things,

Down a lane or along the beach,
my right and left arms round the sides of two friends,
and I in the middle; voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,

It is time to explain myself.
I am the teacher .
My words itch at your ears till you understand them.
I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.
The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice.
The young mother and old mother comprehend me,
each hour of the twenty-four I find letters dropt in the street,
and I leave them where they are, for I know that
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I hear you whispering there O stars,O suns — O grass of graves.
If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?
The past and present wilt. I have emptied them.

Who wishes to walk with me?
not a bit tamed, untranslatable,
I depart as air,
bequeath myself to the grass.
If you want me again, look for me.
Missing me one place, search another.
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.