nicole

To be in any form, what is that?
If nothing lay more developed the quahaug and its callous shell were enough.

Mine is no callous shell,
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.

I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,
To touch my person to some one else’s is about as much as I can stand.

Is this then a touch? . . . . quivering me to a new identity,
Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,
Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,
My flesh and blood playing out lightning, to strike what is hardly different from
myself,

The Quahag or Quahog the word comes from the Mohegan-Montauk Narragansett it simply means a clam.

I like this excerpt because I think persons can relate to it. Never mind Whitman is referring to I, it speaks to us as a  whole.

We as humans are always looking and finding new identities, from child hood to adulthood. It may not be drastic, but we do change. We evolve sexually mentally and physically.

The shell of this quahog is hard, it  has protection, the clam grows safely inside, no-one  seizes it, it already has it’s identity. It changes only in it’s callous shell. Never mind the exert goes in to a naughty scene it captures Whitman at his raw state…………….

On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,
Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,
Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,
Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,
Unbuttoning my clothes and holding me by the bare waist,
Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture fields,
Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,
They bribed to swap off with touch, and go and graze at the edges of me,
No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,
Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them awhile,
Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.

I just found those words jumping out to me.