Localized Whitman
by P.H. Wise

To see China as the vague outline of a ricefield,
with a factory rising in the distance
To see England as the London skyline
stenciled on a piece of smooth wax paper --
To see Africa more clearly than our own backyards,
in High Definition, the Survivor cast dressed all in priestly robes --
Lions and gazelles, Darfur and Hotel Rwanda
Mecca rises from a sun-baked land, gleaming like a jewel --
A man explodes in a crowded marketplace
bringing death and fire and smoke and cacaphony
and human parts raining down on consumers' heads --
but we don't mind. We'll eat that, too.
The whole globalized world, not much larger than a fish-bowl.

Oh to wander through the wooded hills beyond my window
Passing under oaks and dusty sunlight
To spend the afternoon with a brilliant woman
in the meadow by the shady brook --
Wild flowers and the sound of water in the creek --
To loaf with her in the grass
To loaf and invite our soul,
with the wide, whirling world around us,
and with that poet to sing ourselves,
each other, a brilliant woman, good company,
wildflowers, shady brooks, meadows,
oak trees, wooded hills, windows,
pomegranates -- stars --

To see eternity in a blade of grass
and a cosmos
in the eyes
of another.

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Author's note:
Obviously, inspired by 'Song of Myself,' by Walt Whitman.