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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 into church altars
if they can find
the right channel
to tune it in on
and I am waiting
for the last supper to be served again
and a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a 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 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
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 rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the
Grecian Urn
to catch each other at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

From A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Copyright © 1958. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.