Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is July 1st, 2020. We're on to a new

month, and that means that it is finally time to read a poem that I've been waiting for the last month

to read. It's by Walt Whitman. It's called A July Afternoon by the Pond. Whitman, of course,

was an American poet who lived from 1819 to 1892. He was a poet, an essayist,

and a journalist, and is particularly famous for his collection, Leaves of Grass. And, of course,

you probably know him best for his poems, O Captain My Captain, and maybe when lilacs last in the

dooryard bloomed. But as I said, today's poem is a July afternoon by the pond,

and it being July 1st, I can finally read this poem with you and not feel like I'm cheating.

So here it is. The fervent heat, but so much more endurable in this pure air,

the white and pink pond blossoms with great heart-shaped leaves.

The glassy waters of the creek, the banks with dense bushery and the picturesque beaches

and shade and turf.

The tremulous reed call of some bird from recesses breaking warm, indolent, half-voluptuous silence.

An occasional wasp, hornet, honeybee, or bumble.

They hover near my hands or face, yet annoy me not, nor I them, as they appear to examine, find nothing, and away they go.

The vast space of the sky overhead so clear,

and the buzzard up there sailing his slow whirl and majestic spirals and discs.

Just over the surface of the pond, two large slate-colored dragonflies,

with wings of lace circling and darting and occasionally

balancing themselves quite still, their wings quivering all the time.

Are they not showing off for my amusement?

The pond itself, with the sword-shaped calamus, the water snakes, occasionally a flitting blackbird with red dabs on his shoulders as he darts slantingly by.

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