Thoughts on The Insurrection and a Poem in the American Spirit: Staten Island Ferry

I’ve spent the last seven days trying to come to terms with the events that rocked our nation a week ago at the Capitol. events that have left me, like everyone, shocked, angry and fearful. What has happened to the country we love? The one that we grew up in? The one that held so much promise? Was it all a lie? How do we return to normal? And what can we do about it? What can I do about it?

As an activist, I have been anti many things. Anti-war. Anti-imperialism. Anti-racism. But I have never been anti-America. Instead, the things I fought against – the anti — were always for America. Meant to remind America of its promise of democracy, equal justice and opportunity for all. In short, freedom which we all have taken for granted. Until now.

Sadly, once again, America has lost its way. Lost in a sea of inflammatory rhetoric. Lost in the remnants of a war — The Civil War — which, frankly, has never ended. That is the reality of what is happening at this moment in our history.

D.T. (I will no longer sully my site with his name, a name that will surely go down in ignominy) is the scar of that history, splitting apart from its mortal wounds and festering before our very eyes. He is not the cause but the result. The Civil War never ended. It went into hibernation and has been reincarnated, and it is now being fought along the same fault lines: White Nationalism. If you are Black, you already know this. If you are Brown, perhaps you’ve already begun to experience this for yourself. If you are White, you have been deluded into thinking that it has been all settled. But the events of the last week show us otherwise.

Our great America poet, Walt Whitman, witnessed the Civil War and documented it in his much of his work. Poems like ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!” “The Wound-Dresser” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed” all speak to the tragedy of that tumultuous period. But Whitman was an optimist. A true believer in democracy and all it had to offer. Just read his poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry“, in which he celebrates “The flags of all nations.” He embraces diversity and sings of the promise of America.

Whitman, however, was not just a poet. During the Civil War, he volunteered as a nurse, comforting wounded soldiers on both sides of the conflict. And perhaps, that’s what we need right now: to nurse the wounds on both sides. To reach out and provide solace. That, however, would require enormous fortitude on everyone’s part, particularity on those politicians who embrace cynicism.

In 2018, I wrote a poem, inspired by Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” called “Staten Island Ferry.” It was written for a poetry/art collaboration which I co-produced with Italian Artist Antonella Manganelli. Whitmanesque by intent, it first appeared in 2019 in Endlessly Rocking: Poems in Honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th Birthday, edited by Stan Galloway and Nicole Yurcaba. The poem strives to revive the spirit of Walt Whitman: a spirit of hope and renewal. A spirit of universal unity. I present it here in an attempt to counter the utterly unAmerican message of last week’s insurrection.

Staten Island Ferry

Where are you, Walt Whitman, absent amidst these teeming masses on this fine weather day?
Where are you, old master, old poet, as the multitudes from all nations convene as one
as the hosts of humanity move as one, cling as one, like barnacles stuck to this noble craft.

Here on this ferryboat that plies the seas insistent
sailing from borough to borough, from shore to shore,
here are your vibrant multitudes,
here are your thronging multitudes,
merging, swarming, boarding this well-worn vessel, this boat that crisscrosses New York ‘s harbor, sailing far and nigh, from this side to that
sailing the same waters that you sailed,
that I sail,
that my children and grandchildren shall sail,
the same waters that rise and roll, that lap and loll, that gather the streams and eddies of this mighty land
that empty into the oceans that connect all nations,
the same waters that connect all time
that connect all humanity.

In the midst of this metropolis, in this center of commerce, in this skyscraped city
in the hustle and bustle of cars and trains, ferries and bikes
of hips wagging and tongues bragging
where individuals from across the globe meet, converge, unite —
the tourists and residents, the hawkers and hagglers,
the painters, the plumbers, the carpenters, the businessmen and women, the office worker and janitor —
here is your democracy, here is your all-embracing vision – the flood-tide of humanity, coming and going, toiling by day and dallying by night
all seeking a vision of equanimity, pursuing a vision of magnanimity, black and white, rich and poor, immigrant and native.

The center of it all.
The absolute breadth of it all.
The all-embracing magnitude of it all.
A vision that defies all creeds, all philosophies, that defies all time.

For we, too, are witness to your vision.
We, too, embrace the men and women who converge here, who assemble here, who migrate here
who ride this venerable ferry to connect their lives from this shore to that, from here and now to ever and anon.
We, too, celebrate the flags of all nations.
We, too, assume the tongues of all nations.
We, too, applaud the ships arriving with their manifest
the young and old, the serf and laborer, the Italians, the Arabs, the Germans, the Swedes,
the Mexicans, the Indians, the Koreans, the French, the Chinese, the Irish, the English, the Scandinavians
and the Native Americans: the Algonquin, the Mohawk, the Iroquois, the Susquehannocks,
those who came before us and those who yet shall come
all great nations, all worthy in their language and culture
all proud in their ways of being
and me in the midst of it all, in your Mannahatta, in this vortex of humanity, of past and present, of here and there, of those who have ridden and those who will ride
of those who have witnessed and those who shall sail victorious into the future.

These are the tides of humanity.
These are the currents that rise with grace.
These are the galleons that arrive with their treasures.
These are the nations that meld into one.

Walt Whitman, as I behold these seagulls glinting in the evening sun
bowing and bending, swooping and gliding
their wings eclipsing the sky
the sunrays emblazing their path, guiding them as they fly off into the boundless distance
I see you, venerable poet,
halo on the horizon.
I ascend towards you.
I return to you.
I embrace you.
I sing the same song you have so splendidly sung.

© 2018 Mike Maggio