August 7: Robert Mueller, Poet of the Week, Walt Whitman, "America"

As Robert Mueller impanels grand juries and the current President of the United States tweets and golfs, I find myself in need of the voice of someone who really understood what my country was, is, and should be.

Walt Whitman is the Poet of the Week, because he is exactly what the United States requires at the moment:  a gay, white-bearded, former Civil War army nurse poet who speaks for everyone--man, woman, child, African American, Native American, Hispanic American, Arab American, Christian, Muslim, atheist, Republican, Democrat, socialist, communist, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, or lesbian.

Saint Marty sings Walt's body electric.

America

by:  Walt Whitman

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,

All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,

Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,

Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,

A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,

Chair’d in the adamant of Time.