Ronald Johnson

Photograph by Ralph Eugene Meatyard 

from Letters to Walt Whitman

III

These I compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits. . .

Solitary, smelling the earthy smell

. . . a handful of sage.

Here, out of my pocket—

twigs of maple & current-stems,

copious bunches of wild orange, chestnut, lilac!

.  .  .

But I have come O Walt

for the interchange, promised, of calamus,

masculine, sweet-smelling root,

between us:

you, who lie in Camden, still waiting for death,

still exuding an earthy smell

—your pockets redolent with sage—

the pond-soil still clinging to your fingers,

aromatic with plucking

calamus.

Calamus, ‘sweet flag’,

that still thrusts itself up,

that seasonally thrusts itself up for lovers.