Al Martinez imagines Walt Whitman at the recent march in LA:

The singing he might hear if he walked the streets of 21st century America would include the rising voices of diversity that filled the air Saturday when up to a million people gathered in the heart of L.A. to announce a new presence at the bargaining table of decision making.

It was a joyful sound, an a cappella in Spanish and English, a "yes we can!" in two languages, challenging the moral antinomies that exist in the silence beyond the harmony. The music was a symphony of hope sung by Latinos and whites and Asians and blacks, in the new America of many voices.

Whitman would have heard the music of protest, sung fortissimo, because poets sense what others miss. They perceive the strings as well as the drums, and glory in the grand union of their orchestration.