In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”, Walt Whitman makes the case that we are all connected through a web of life on our public transportation journeys together. While I was skeptical when I first approached the poem, I found that Whitman has made a good case. Not only are passengers aboard a common mode of transportation, they all share the same goal of arriving at their destination. Whitman writes “

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day,

  The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every

      one disintegrated yet part of the scheme” which I took to mean that no one is fully themselves anymore on public transport but rather, all passengers take part in the collective consciousness, all fragmented but the pieces coming together to form the perfect picture. Additionally, Whitman places a lot of emphasis on the past and future, and how this shared existence will continue even after he is gone, which is true. Whitman’s points were relevant in the 19th century and even more relevant today when human connections are so overshadowed by technology.

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