I am Waiting • Poetry Wednesday

I Am Waiting

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

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

from These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems

courtesy The Poetry Foundation