Walt Whitman is one of my favorite poets and this piece of his just makes me smile. It's one of his simpler poems. He speaks of a lecture he attended where an impressive astronomer spoke. This poem is rather narrative and doesn't use as much figurative language as most poems I write about on here. He spends four lines describing the astronomer's lecture and then writes, "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick." I know how you feel, Walt. I love learning. Well, most of the time. But so often I sit in the room suffocating with the lack of significance of the lesson prepared. It was especially bad in Trig! Anyway, Whitman goes on to wander outside and looks up at the stars in all their beauty. The author's meaning is so sweet and SIMPLE. He is saying we spend too much time studying, explaining, justifying and not enough time enjoying. I love this philosophy. I have been reflecting on my life and have realized, like Whitman, things are too complicated. I have spent so many hours doing homework over watching a movie with my mom. Life is best in its simplest form. We cannot force explanations for miracles. To me, my family is a miracle. We are so happy. I hardly know another family like mine. Rather than ignoring the beauty of my family, only to aspire to the honors of the world I want to sit back and enjoy it. I don't want to memorize the constellations, only marvel up at the night sky.
I think this poem shows the contrast (or even comparison?) to intellectual knowledge and emotional feeling. It touches us in different ways. Good.
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