Red Line, DuPont Circle

The D.C. metro is not as “charming” as the New York City metro, but it can still surprise you.

I don’t mean surprises like trains stuck in tunnels for 15 min, delays, or bomb threats. I mean real, shocking surprises, the kind that makes you stare in the void for a while.

Well, it happened to me as I was traveling in the famous Red Line.

While I was reading the Washington Post, somewhere around DuPont Circle, I heard a conversation between two men who were sitting behind me. One of them was amazed how unusual was the church they visited the other day. He said the main building was a real old barn. They were renovating it so that it doesn’t collapse. The other one agreed that everything in the church seemed unusual and “cool”—the wooden door in the middle of the stage, [which I suppose is a symbol of entering the spiritual world], the mysterious British accent of the preacher, and especially the sermon. The first man said the preacher included in the sermon verses of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”

By the time I turned back to see their faces they were gone.

But when I got home, I looked for the poem. This is what I found:

Song of Myself,
Walt Whitman

4

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Radina Gigova