Sails may fill

I am the spirit of

Fuller, Whitman and Ives

I ply the creative craft of this land

and have no home.

My fellow man, my accuser,

to him I seek to give

All my life an endless pouring

of my soul and my health.

Accused not of greatness

but of difference

they want to make a commune

of my novel self.

Or otherwise ignore

or cost me out

because I have no utility

as a fine paved road.

If it’s poetry I write

I keep my common typewriter

finely tuned.

If it’s music I create

I abandon it for

the common good.

If it’s a soaring scaffold

of ideas I create

I’m remembered (more or less)

for an afterthought.

It’s my country I’ve tried

to create

a lasting reflection

of eternity

So that here, after the right to liberty

has been earned by bending

to the common will,

A man may set a heading

in a favorable wind

and his spirit may soar

his sails may fill.