THE WINTER MANTRA FROM"THE SLEEPERS"

I descend my western course, my sinews are flaccid,

Perfume and youth course through me and I am their wake.

It is my face yellow and wrinkled instead of the old woman's,

I sit low in a straw bottom chair and carefully darn my grandson's

stockings.

It is I too, the sleepless widow looking out on the winter moonlight,

I see the sparkles of starshine on the icy and pallid earth.

A shroud I see and I am the shroud, I wrap a body and lie

in the coffin,
it is dark here underground, it is not evil or pain here,

it is blank here, for reasons.

(It seems to me everything in the light and air ought to be happy.

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough)

Walt Whitman section 2 of THE SLEEPERS

("I know not how I came of you and I know not where I go with you,

but I know I came well and shall go well."

The Winter Mantra)