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Passport of Words
for Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith (1810-1879)
What’s this, Elihu? I Google your name
on the internet—instant library
that makes equals of anyone who can manage
a computer and the monthly service fee.
But I find I have no rank or standing.
“Access denied,” a website tells me.
The open hands of institutional learning
don’t reach out to welcome me.
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How far you walked, Elihu, to educate
yourself: from New Britain a hundred miles
to Boston, forty more to the Antiquarian
Society with its fabulous collections.
How much a man can teach himself,
when he’s willing to walk a universe
of shelves: mathematics, astronomy, Hebrew,
Bohemian, Arabic, Greek, Syriac,
Norse—those sagas of discovery,
sailing to a New World, you translated
into English, our passport to “old Sigurd’s
doing, daring and dying,”
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But how complicated is our
new world, Elihu. All knowledge
at my fingertips, just asking for
the password. What a poor traveler am I.
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