"Not the air, delicious and dry, the
"air of the ripe summer, bears
"lightly along white down-balls
"of myriads of seeds, wafted,
"sailing gracefully, to drop
"where they may . . ."
---Walt Whitman, Live Oak, With Moss, I
A Junior, he guided so much of my first---
Freshman---year. During a most memorable
study session (Whitman's Calamus poems), he
declared that our socks must not come off (like our
other clothes now floored
in defiance of old prudes' and haters' fierce
homophobia---even on that campus):
the socks (matching pairs of semi-sheerness) should
not come off until we had come off and our
sweetnesses released
on to, or into, each other, or streaks sprayed
on those socks after our lofters had launched thick
ropes of glistening sweetness (iridescent,
having warmed in our intimate cores---from there,
fragrant, flavorful
and capable of embodying our love
at the peak of homogenous bliss, without
thought for imposed inhibitive intrusions.
Splashdown followed. Then we kept our socks on---and
studied Whitman's poems.
J-Called