American Epic. Leslie Anne Mcilroy.

American Epic

Words and words. Truth as we dress it. Scoundrel and the scoundrel within. O Captain, my Captain, this is death as I know it. This is the final sound. Word upon word upon leaves, upon grass. I DO hear America singing in all its voices, its words. Come to me. Come to me now with your bitter and sweet. You see I died for this alone. To hear you still singing is a plank or a beam, an open mouth. I want like nobody has ever wanted before. Like the star that wants to land, all strung up in heaven with it’s purpose, destination, its filament ever tirelessly speeding it, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys, what the author calls a man’s life. As lilacs once in the door-yard bloom’d, there is a fragrance in the pines, and the cedars dusk and dim. There is the obscene, the everyman’s want. There is the every man and the every woman, the every voice. There is me. I am large, I contain multitudes: I am man and woman and body craving body. Resist much, obey little, except this: You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. You must tell your story to those who will listen, and tell it again to those who will not.