When I Heard the Learned Astronomer (Walt Whitman)

When I Heard the Learned Astronomer by Walt Whitman is the poem for this evening's post.

This poem is pretty to the point. It's not difficult to understand it. Nature doesn't need explanation to be appreciated. In fact, it might even take away from it. Crap, maybe that can be expanded to poetry as a whole and thus this blog is the over-starched lecture that N walks away from. Hrmmm. Grumble.

I do love this poem though. I first read it back in middle school and felt that the whole truth of everything was in this poem. Because sometimes (that's my current voice, before, in high school, I would have said 'because it's always..') it's like that.

Information is golden. That is not the issue, I think. It's more needing to listen to your own intelligence and understand things in your own way. Taking things at your own pace and knowing how best you interact with the world. This poem tells how to approach the world. And ain't that a true old fashioned poetry concept? And it being a Whitman poem, it's written with such modern phrasing. Neat-o.

Favorite line: "Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself"