August 8: Voting Day, Walt Whitman, "For You O Democracy"

Today is voting day.  After work, I drove over to my precinct, presented my driver's license, and was handed my ballot.  It was the first time I have voted since the presidential election, when I stood in line to vote for Hillary Clinton.  At the time, I was confident that I would wake up on November 9 to the news that my country had elected a woman as President of the United States.  I was sure.

Now, my confidence in our electoral process is a little shaken.  Not that I think Russia cares about millage issues and state primaries.  But I lost a little faith in my fellow citizens on that November morning.  I lost faith in the American experiment started over 225 years ago by a bunch of dead white guys.

I still have hope in democracy.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have voted today.  I believe that wrongs are eventually made right, lies are exposed, criminals are brought to justice.

Saint Marty believes that democracy will endure in the United States.  Somehow.

For You O Democracy

by:  Walt Whitman

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,

I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,

I will make divine magnetic lands,

                   With the love of comrades,

                      With the life-long love of comrades.

I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,

I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other’s necks,

                   By the love of comrades,

                      By the manly love of comrades.

For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!

For you, for you I am trilling these songs.