Exemplar
Did I learn a worthy trade? Study war as a warrior?
Was I a helper, a first responder,
nurse, nanny, priest, pumpkin farmer,
a horny handed laborer,
did I lecture nitwit’s on the liberal arts or economics?
None of the above.
Yet I claim the kinship of all these,
my esteemed traveling companion:
Master Walt Whitman agrees.
I extol all of you America! All scoundrels,
wasters, longshoremen, coopers, sail makers,
beef butchers, mechanics, farriers, truckers,
tech analysts, grocers, grifters and daytime hookers.
I offer all of you my theoretical talents
and apply them generously to you,
the heaving throngs, and huddled masses.
Praise be and glory to all impractical scribblers,
liars, disgraced philosophers, tricksters, and drunks.
We poets celebrate ourselves,
save the world for ourselves alone,
warn of the terrible dire in the good,
the terrible good in the dire, while distrusting both,
yet still and all, disliking our own works
even more.
Copyright ©
Eric Ashford
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