At Whitman's Tomb (I)

This is a draft of the first part of a sequence I’m currently working on about Walt Whitman’s tomb in Camden - that is, the conditions of its conception and creation (present poem), his death and funeral, ending with my own experience visiting it in April 2015.

It was in a letter dated Sept. 29th, 1890

and addressed to your dear friend

and executor, Mr. Bucke: a drawing

done in blue crayon on a loose scrap

of paper fingertipped off the carpet

next to your rocking chair, folded

haphazardly and tapped down into

the envelope right after drawing it.

Like a house pictured in the mind

of a child, your dwelling reduced

here to its most basic form. A roof

and two supporting walls, a door

to enter with your name above

saw-toothed tidings of the ground —

the famous signature that betrays

the surrounding text as written

by your hand, the ink having run

on the too soft and porous paper.