My first reaction to this poem was “why is it so long?” and then after I read it for the fourth or fifth time I was like “why isn’t it longer?!”

I am not a big poetry fan so I was surprised when I read it…because I actually liked it.

I picked stanza 32 to focus on.

Animals.

They are so different from humans. They do not have responsibilities nor wealth, anxiety, faith, and etc. They do not care about their status in society and they do not care about what people think. I aspire to be as carefree and stress free as an animal. No wonder we love animals so much. Honest and caring.

Sometimes us, the humans, care too much, worry too much, and we just forget to live. We care about materialistic objects…but when we die we don’t bring anything with us. I agree with Whitman! We have this obsession with owning things and property.

I also love this connection between animal and human…

“A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,
Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,
Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,
Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.
His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,
His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.”
The horse and rider are unified for a moment and then they separate and he lefts the horse run free. But in Whitman’s imagination he is galloping faster than the stallion.

Professor, you made a good point in class. Animals do not have imagination but us, the humans, do. We have something amazing that makes us different. Imagination leads to dreams which leads to having goals which then leads to having a purpose. It is what drives us everyday. The reason we wake up in the morning.

This stanza reminds me to have fun and to not have to take life seriously.

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