From "Walt Whitman's Inscriptions"

"To Thee Old Cause"

Supplementary Material

Recording 1.

"To Thee Old Cause."

Walt Whitman is on Tinder in India. He can'tStop swiping right; everyone is divine. His loneGrievance is with the screen, the absenceOf bodies, of embodiments. The body is where Walt's poemsBegin, after all; like when he claims, in "Song of Myself,"That beggars "embody themselves in me and IAm embodied in them"; and because of that reciprocity,Suddenly Walt can write a poemAbout what it's like to hunger. Walt's trouble with TinderIs the avatar, is that he can't sympathizeWith an image. Turning formlessnessInto form, Walt announces, is the first stepTo increasing intimacy.In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna demonstratesThis affinity between form and intimacyWhen he assumes the shape of a man and meets ArjunaOn a battlefield, where they dialogue like two menOn the verge of warFor whom war is not the nearest priority,About duty, illusion, and reality. This is what the word avatarInitially meant: the descent of a deityInto terrestrial form. Everyone is divineWalt's repeating like a mantra as he sweeps his thumb repeatedlyAcross the screen–a modern mudra of omni-reverence;But in the Gita, Arjuna actually gets to witnessKrishna's theophany–beginningless, boundless,Performing unending miracles with numberless partsAnd infinite expressionsOn infinite faces–and is obliged to apologizeFor ever treating the god,In his finite human form, too casually. Oops,Says Arjuna; I carelessly lunched and lounged in beds with you.Except really Arjuna says nothing;Because when Krishna exhibits the infinite,Arjuna is mute with awe.Awe is notIntimacy. The avatar occasions–embodiment occasions–Both intimacy and a kind of heedlessness. KrishnaIs forgetful even of his own godheadTo facilitate this intimacy, to dialogueAbout devotion, which is what men examineAt the threshold of war. He returnsTo the body when he discerns Arjuna's fear, Arjuna's artAnd Arjuna's artlessnessWhen coming into contact with the Absolute.

My lover is afraid of the similaritiesBetween our bodies. Does this make her moreOr less my lover. It is dawn in India;We are in bed and Walt is in the roomNext door; I do pranayamaWhile my lover sleeps. It is a filling and emptyingOf form; it is controlAs a kind of intimacy, intimacy as a byproductOf control as practice. I thinkThis discipline of the breath, this witnessingThe rise and fall of my own chest is my temporary joy.The Bhagavad-Gita says it is my temporary problem;That form is but one expressionOf a myriad of possibilities and thus a limitation;That attachment is a byproduct of embodiment,Which is form.It is easy to ignoreOne's attachments to one's loverWhen it is dawn, and there is togethernessAnd synchronous breath.I think, if I were more like Walt,I would also be able to celebrate my lover's lovers.That I would respond with more graceWhen the razor in her shower has a fresh blade on it,When she steps outOn an eveningIn lipstick one shade darkerThan the shade she usually wears.Lovers no longer fail–if they ever did–Because of the animosityOf gods or fathers; though they've always failedBecause of formAnd its attendant attachments. Because one timeYour lover will lose a friendAnd will need to grieve alone;And you won't justly be able to gauge her griefAgainst your sadnessThat you are not the object of her consolation.Because sometimes you tell your loverAbout rush hour traffic on the 280, emphasizingHow you must endure it each time you come to her,And while neither of you would call it this,Each of you senses some small manipulationIn what...