Willie Metcalf

Listen to:

Willie Metcalf (1:23)

from Spoon River Anthology
by Edgar Lee Masters

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I was Willie Metcalf.
  They used to call me "Doctor Meyers,"
  Because, they said, I looked like him.
  And he was my father, according to Jack McGuire.
  I lived in the livery stable,
  Sleeping on the floor
  Side by side with Roger Baughman's bulldog,
  Or sometimes in a stall.
  I could crawl between the legs of the wildest horses
  Without getting kicked--we knew each other.
   On spring days I tramped through the country
  To get the feeling, which I sometimes lost,
  That I was not a separate thing from the earth.
  I used to lose myself, as if in sleep,
  By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
  Sometimes I talked with animals--even toads and snakes--
  Anything that had an eye to look into.
  Once I saw a stone in the sunshine
  Trying to turn into jelly.
  In April days in this cemetery
  The dead people gathered all about me,
  And grew still, like a congregation in silent prayer.
  I never knew whether I was a part of the earth
  With flowers growing in me, or whether I walked--
  Now I know.