A Song of the Rolling Earth

A SONG of the rolling earth, and of words according,
Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines?
     those curves, angles, dots?
No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the
     ground and sea,
They are in the air, they are in you.

Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious
     sounds out of your friends' mouths?
No, the real words are more delicious than they.

Human bodies are words, myriads of words,
(In the best poems re-appears the body, man's or woman's,
     well-shaped, natural, gay,
Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the
     need of shame.)

Air, soil, water, fire — those are words,
I myself am a word with them — my qualities interpenetrate
     with theirs — my name is nothing to them,
Though it were told in the three thousand languages, what would
     air, soil, water, fire, know of my name?

A healthy presence, a friendly or commanding gesture, are
     words, sayings, meanings,
The charms that go with the mere looks of some men and women,
     are sayings and meanings also.

The workmanship of souls is by those inaudible words of the
     earth,
The masters know the earth's words and use them more than
     audible words.

Amelioration is one of the earth's words,
The earth neither lags nor hastens,

It has all attributes, growths, effects, latent in itself from the
     jump,
It is not half beautiful only, defects and excrescences show
     just as much as perfections show.

The earth does not withhold, it is generous enough,
The truths of the earth continually wait, they are not so
     conceal'd either,
They are calm, subtle, untransmissible by print,
They are imbued through all things conveying themselves
     willingly,
Conveying a sentiment and invitation, I utter and utter,
I speak not, yet if you hear me not of what avail am I
     to you?
To bear, to better, lacking these of what avail am I?

(Accouche! accouchez!
Will you rot your own fruit in yourself there?
Will you squat and stifle there?)

The earth does not argue,
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise,
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out,
Of all the powers, objects, states, it notifies, shuts
     none out.

The earth does not exhibit itself nor refuse to exhibit
     itself, possesses still underneath,
Underneath the ostensible sounds, the august chorus of
     heroes, the wail of slaves,
Persuasions of lovers, curses, gasps of the dying, laughter
     of young people, accents of bargainers,
Underneath these possessing words that never fail.

To her children the words of the eloquent dumb great
     mother never fail,
The true words do not fail, for motion does not fail and
     reflection does not fail,
Also the day and night do not fail, and the voyage we
     pursue does not fail.

Of the interminable sisters,
Of the ceaseless cotillions of sisters,
Of the centripetal and centrifugal sisters, the elder and
     younger sisters,
The beautiful sister we know dances on with the rest.

With her ample back towards every beholder,
With the fascinations of youth and the equal fascinations
     of age,
Sits she whom I too love like the rest, sits undisturb'd,
Holding up in her hand what has the character of a mirror,
     while her eyes glance back from it,
Glance as she sits, inviting none, denying none,
Holding a mirror day and night tirelessly before her own
     face.