Whitman in my veins

"When lilacs last..." 5 1/2 by 7 watercolor, 140 pound d'Arches paper

Though April is afar off, the most powerful lines in American poetry never are, at least for those who write in love with the power and possibilities of our language.

"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night..."

Walt Whitman's elegy to President Lincoln is deep inside, his poetry and prose flowing through our veins, even when we don't always know it.