My colleague Pat sent me this poem by Walt Whitman. It's from a longer wonderful poem called Song of the Open Road...



"Here is the test of wisdom,

Wisdom is not finally tested in schools,

Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it,

Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,

Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,

Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;

Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.


Now I re-examine philosophies and religions,

They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds

and along the landscape and flowing currents.
Here is realization,

Here is a man tallied--he realizes here what he has in him,

The past, the future, majesty, love--

if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them."
Walt Whitman

Thanks Pat
Chris