“And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

The point when you come home and my nose nestles into your neck.  The smell of you tickles my senses and brings me immense Joy.  My eyes close, my shoulders relax and you inhale/exhale deeply into my hair. The tension rolls off. Peace.

The flesh may not be perfect, but the nooks, crannies, and scars read like poetry. The epic piece is called You. And the pleasure derived from the re-reading of the work cannot be measured. It is a treasure of Life, of Us.

The quote from Walt Whitman applies in its short form.
In the long form, one us falls short and it’s not you.
But, the sentiments do offer an altruistic way to live life.

This is what you shall do
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

“This is what you shall do…” by Walt Whitman,
from the preface of Leaves of Grass.
Public domain.

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