Advice from Walt Whitman

Buddhism is important in my fourth book of poems, “Interbeing,” also in honor of my deceased brother, George. I’m recovering from a couple of falls at 91. I’m coming back slowly surrounded by fine folk and a lovely garden. Landed on lower back, not my head. Be grateful, I tell myself.

Walt Whitman, from “Leaves of Grass”:

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.