Harvey's Journal: January 12, 2010

What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other,
and exhaust each other, if it must be so;)
From the master—the pilot I yield the vessel to,
The general commanding me, commanding all—from
him permission taking,
From time the programme hastening, (I have loitered
too long, as it is;)
From sex—
From the warp and from the woof,
(To talk to the perfect girl who understands me—the
girl of The States,
To waft to her these from my own lips—to effuse
them from my own body;)
From privacy—
From frequent repinings alone,
From plenty of persons near, and yet the right person
not near,
From the soft sliding of hands over me, and thrusting
of fingers through my hair and beard,
From the long-sustained kiss upon the mouth or
bosom,
From the close pressure that makes me or any man
drunk, fainting with excess,
From what the divine husband knows—from the
work of fatherhood,
From exultation, victory, and relief—from the bed-
fellow's embrace in the night,
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips, and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling arm,
From the bending curve and the clinch,
From side by side, the pliant coverlid off throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me leave—and
me just as unwilling to leave...

Walt Whitman has it right--beginning every line alike, what Pamela calls anaphora. I think we are still at the beginning of how much we will love each other. I remember she wrecked her car 23 years ago today, and that was the beginning of it; and then she kissed me good night on January 17, our first date, and that was the complication of it, when I wrecked my car thinking about that kiss; and some days even now we'll be in a car driving to the lake or to the library--somewhere--and I'll look over at that profile and think From that day, this one and I will know that we are blessed.