I Am Waiting

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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 the 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

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The poem was written in 1958, 64 years ago.  I was nine years old in 1958.  I discovered the poem yesterday.  This poem seemed as if an arrow shot to the center, to the heart.  So much of what was written by the poet is a critical diagnosis of the USA and indeed of the world as a globalized society.

Over the past day or so the Ukrainian army has made astonishing progress in their lightning counter attack against the Russian army on two fronts.  The news comes as a relief, since any defeat of tyranny makes me feel better.  The Ukrainians have a will to win and are equipped with state of the art weapons from American armories, General Dynamics, BAE Systems, Barrett Firearms, etc.  Russian troops being conscripts have neither a will to win, nor state of the art weapons…  Yet the scene is another tragedy — thousands will not return home, many simply disappearing in the kinetic miasma of war.  I ought to feel grief for Russian dead.

Here at home there is a spiritual “great continental divide” between the Trump-Party-Believers residing mainly in “red” states, Texas and Florida come to mind, and those of us believing that everyone should have an equal voice.  A liberal democratic order is the only sane form of establishment.  Women, and residents of every ethnicity should have a seat at the table.  America has been the object of a slow-motion coup, now in the bright light of day, rapidly coming to fruition, if not already a fait accompli.  There are occasions of extremity when a civil society can be saved only by the application of force.  Now is such an occasion.

Global warming, climate change, extreme weather events.  California burns in a year-round fire season.  The Colorado River drys up and along with it Lake Mead and Lake Powell.  Nevada is thirsty as population growth outpaces available water.  The glacier melt at the poles accelerates.

I echo Ferlinghetti’s refrain of “I am waiting.”  The waiting is aspirational, a mental construct of the tasks many of us know must to be done.  Only acts, — the exercise of force affect change, create something new, a bet upon a future where homo sapiens are caretakers of the earth, as well as of one another.

Enough said.