WALT WHITMAN

Wandering among abstruse and upper circles,
or else, simply alive and paradoxical
(all wisdom or all contradiction)
you pass, although you have returned to the "eternal uses
of the earth," this time even more categorical,
as in Barbarossa's final incarnation.

I will follow your trail with the zeal of the hound,
among the rhythmic stars or the earth-molded human,
wherever you are now repeating, Walt Whitman,
the autochthonous canticles of your iron land

Whether you are in the banner of the stars and stripes,
or at the iron gate where the serfs are rebelling,
or at the post that watches upstanding in defiance, 
or at the nuptial exchange which the morning revives,
or with the sailors' crew taking arms and uprising
or in the trampling of bisons crossing the darkness,
or in the endless void where silence and death reign,
receive this salutation cast to the wind and the sky
with the certain impression of embracing you briefly
and the agonizing fear of losing you again.