bloodteethandflame

“Are you the new person drawn towards me?”

Walt Whitman,  1819–1892

Are you the new person drawn toward me?

To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;

Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?

Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?

Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?

Do you think I am trusty and faithful?

Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?

Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?

Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?

~~

I love this poem.

And there is actually a reason for my posting it, which I’ll get to in a moment.

~~~

But first, I wanted to express my consternation at being very near the halfway point of the month, and yet, my intention of writing a daily devotional to Loki here, obviously, has not happened.

Though it hasn’t been for lack of material – though I did worry/panic a bit at the possibility that I would run out of things to post, and yet, surprisingly, that is not a problem — but it is entirely due to my inability to actually commit to sitting in this chair each day to actually post something.

And that is a problem.

Because now my brain is sorta backed up with stuff, and I have this wild ADHD-fueled desire to Post All The Things(!!).

But, with the help of some deep cleansing breaths, I’ve realized that I can commit to, at the very least, posting today about this poem.

Well, because, you see, this poem kinda snuck up on me, in a very specifically strange and delightful way, and I figured that finding this poem this morning was a sign that maybe I should talk about this poem.

Today.

In a post.

Right now.

~~~

Being a native New Englander, I am somewhat familiar with Walt Whitman, as Whitman is often lumped in with Longfellow, Thoreau, Frost, and other poets/writers of that time period….and Longfellow, Thoreau, and Frost are definitely associated with New England in a lot of ways. (Even though I was somewhat surprised about 20 minutes ago to re-discover via Google that Whitman is from New York. Hmm. I don’t consider New York as being New England, so that seems a bit off, but I digress…)

So, I would even say that I somewhat like Whitman’s poetry, and I considered myself familiar with a lot of his poetry, too.

But, mind you, Walt Whitman is certainly not enough of a favorite poet of mine that I maintain a digital collection of his poetry or anything.

But this particular poem?

I’d never seen it before.

And I almost typed ‘…until today’ but if I said that, it wouldn’t make any sense, really, because I found the poem this morning saved to my ‘Favorite Bookmarks’ list.

Now how could that be if I say that I never knew that this poem existed until today BUT it was somehow added to my Favorites list previous to this day?

Because it so seems to have been.

And yet, I don’t remember ever adding it to my Favorites, and this is my laptop, and no one else uses this laptop but me, and yet, it was obviously added before this day, because there are several entries before and after it that I do remember adding.

So.

What does it mean?

I don’t know…and yet, here is this poem that speaks to me today about something that has been on my mind for weeks, concerning authenticity.

I don’t know what this poem does for you — and feel free to let me know how it strikes you — but I know what this poem did for me this morning.

It got me to thinking about Loki’s ‘face’/’facets (and my own, too, of course.).

It caused me to think about how each face/facet exists alongside the other faces/facets, and how these faces can be ones that are intentionally shown, or they can be ones that are intentionally hidden, or even faces that one doesn’t realize are being shown/seen or hidden/known until one is ready to see/know them….

Hmmm…there are so many of them, aren’t there?

And it’s funny how this poem seems to have shown up on my Bookmarks suddenly, and its words hit me like a ton of bricks.

This poem is, in my opinion, a sneaky ton of bricks.

But then, again, it strikes me as definitely a poem about approaching. Approaching someone whom one wants to know, or one thinks that they know, and this poem can serve as a little introductory interview.

Ah….I see what you did there.

How so very… Loki of you.