Walt Whitman

Under a red autumn sky I saw my reflection in a river named after a mystic and for the first time I reveled in the mystery that was me. I felt its icy reverence and affirmed its coldness. This worship. This joy. For fifty years I lived as a human puzzle. My mortal self always anxious as I pushed away what I should have  known. On this day I learned soon I would die. Perhaps it would be in ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years or more. But soon my passing would come as it does to us all. Like a lion with a grey main...or like the great bird who can no longer soar—I would succumb and draw my final living breath. Their journey was my journey. Their mystic was my mystic. We would now drink from the same river’s shore. And together we would no longer fear. I would celebrate our reflection not with loudness or libation, but with the liberty of the ancient hawk who lastly glides and accepts wings that will beat nevermore. ‘Afoot and light-hearted’ I sang harmony with the mystic and the grey lion. I kept pace and then bowed to the great bird as he floated peacefully under the red shimmer of our welcoming sky.