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Writer's pictureThomas Tittmann

America: I'm Waiting for a Rebirth of Wonder

Hello, on this eve of Independence Day...hereafter to be known as


INTERDEPENDENCE DAY


These holiday musings began a few weeks ago as I experienced this spoken-word artist present the hopes, dreams and challenges in a 1958 poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti entitled:

"I Am Waiting for a Rebirth of Wonder."


If it stirs something in your heart, please check out related musings added today to my blog.


I am waiting...







I Am Waiting

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1958)


I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   


and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder


I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder


I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder


I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder


Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “I Am Waiting” from A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.


Eileen and I watched this film a few nights ago...



About [from the trailer below]

This definitive documentary is an incisive portrait of literary polymath Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In one-on-one interviews, he reflects on events that began to unfold in postwar America -- including the publication of Ginsberg's Howl, Burroughs' Naked Lunch, and Kerouac's On the Road -- as well as the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and the founding of City Lights. Ferlinghetti reads his poems, discusses his activism, and offers unguarded insight into nine decades of his life. Features appearances by Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, Dave Eggers, Bob Dylan and more.




MATERIAL WHILE WE'RE IN THE WAITING ROOM

A likely reason for my attraction to the poem is the use of its "WONDER." See, a song "Inarticulate Speech of the Heart" with the same word "wonder" in its lyrics became the inspiration for the name of my website. He begins by sharing his own inspiration for it...





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