{"id":8330,"date":"2023-12-01T09:19:27","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T16:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8330"},"modified":"2023-12-01T09:19:27","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T16:19:27","slug":"walt-whitman-what-is-the-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/01\/walt-whitman-what-is-the-grass\/","title":{"rendered":"Walt Whitman – What is the grass?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the grass?
\nby Walt Whitman<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,
\nHow could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
\nI guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
\nOr I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
\nA scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
\nBearing the owner\u2019s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
\nOr I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.<\/p>\n

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
\nAnd it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
\nGrowing among black folks as among white,
\nCanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.<\/p>\n

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
\nTenderly will I use you curling grass,
\nIt may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
\nIt may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
\nIt may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers\u2019 laps,
\nAnd here you are the mothers\u2019 laps.
\nThis grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
\nDarker than the colorless beards of old men,
\nDark to come from under the faint red roof of mouths.
\nO I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
\nAnd I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
\nI wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
\nAnd the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
\nWhat do you think has become of the young and old men?
\nAnd what do you think has become of the women and children?
\nThey are alive and well somewhere,
\nThe smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
\nAnd if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
\nAnd ceased the moment life appeared.
\nAll goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
\nAnd to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a>, Edited by Ivan M. Granger<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by NJ<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

A comment on the Poetry Chaikhana blog from a couple days ago reminded me of this poem and commentary in The Longing in Between. I thought I\u2019d share it with everyone.<\/p>\n

=<\/p>\n

Why does Whitman give us this prolonged meditation on grass? After all, it is just, well, grass. It is the same green plant surrounding every suburban home, and growing tall in every field and hillside all over the world. We tread on it every day. We know what grass is: it\u2019s forgettable.<\/p>\n

Not so, says Whitman. We think we know what grass is and remain ignorant. It is easy through familiarity to become blind. We see a lawn, mentally label it as \u201cgrass,\u201d and never really look or bother to know this plant with which we share so much of the world.<\/p>\n

This is what is so startling and refreshing about Whitman\u2019s opening line\u2013<\/p>\n

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands,
\nHow could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he<\/i><\/p>\n

I love his utterly honest response. Most people presume they know exactly what grass is and can therefore dismiss it from their awareness. But the poet properly sees in the child\u2019s fistful of grass a living mystery to be considered.<\/p>\n

With Whitman we ask, what is grass really?<\/p>\n

It is green hope. It is a handkerchief flirtatiously dropped by God to draw our thoughts to the lovely Face. It is the \u201cbabe of vegetation,\u201d the embodiment of new life and new growth in the plant world.<\/p>\n

What is grass? It is a hieroglyphic, a message layered with hidden meaning. It is a universal teaching encoded in life itself: Like the world\u2019s green grasses, we must give generously of ourselves, equally to high and low, without regard to race or nation. Like the grass, it is our nature to grow and to be present, to share our life in every land and landscape.<\/p>\n

Then Whitman enters an extended meditation on how grass connects life and death\u2013<\/p>\n

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves\u2026
\nIt may be you transpire from the breasts of young men\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Why this gloomy turn? He doesn\u2019t just imagine the graves of the elderly who had lived the full measure of their lives, but he sees too the graves of young men and even infants \u201ctaken soon out of their mothers\u2019 laps.\u201d It is important to remember that Whitman is writing in the aftermath of the American Civil War. In fact, during the war, he worked in the New York hospitals. He well knew the bloody reality of young men sacrificed in war.<\/p>\n

But here, and elsewhere in his poetry, Whitman makes room even for suffering and violence and death in his philosophy. While he clearly has a compassionate heart, he does not simply label some experiences as unjust, which then must be heroically opposed. Instead, it is as if he watches it all \u2014 the beauty and the suffering, everything \u2014 unfolding\u2026 within himself. It is all him. It is all in the scope of his being. Doing this, he accomplishes a truly courageous feat: integration.<\/p>\n

Through that integration, we gain a new vision. We see not life with its end in death, but a living, organic flow of life becoming life becoming life: a perpetual vision of self-renewal. And the grass is the embodiment of this process.<\/p>\n

While the dead lie beneath the ground, this green life grows from their now quiet bodies, nourished by their hopes. From the dead comes such pure, delicate new life.<\/p>\n

Though there is much to be mourned in Whitman\u2019s catalog of the dead, I find the totality of his vision to be reassuring. The grass, the growth of new life, draws even the most premature and unjust deaths into a realm of wholeness and continuity. This vision, which has made room for death, yet is understood as part of a greater unfolding of life, welcomes us back into the family of life.<\/p>\n

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death<\/i><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you love that line? And\u2013<\/p>\n

All goes onward and outward \u2014 nothing collapses;
\nAnd to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.<\/i><\/p>\n

That last line, every time I read it I am brought to a halt, ready to laugh out loud. What is he saying? \u201cTo die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.\u201d<\/p>\n

This whole poem has been his observation on how life renews itself, even through death. But here Whitman seems to be implying something more personal and open-ended, as if his meditation has led him to the notion that death is a sort of initiation into a new and unexpected participation in existence. He has left us with a teasing, Zen-like riddle that offers few answers, yet opens up a pathway of vibrant questions\u2026<\/p>\n

=<\/p>\n

PS \u2013 If you missed it from earlier this week, check out my Holiday Book Recommendations for 2023<\/a>. Some wonderful collections to spend some long quiet moments with.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Walt Whitman<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nSong of Myself<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nLeaves of Grass<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nDead Poets Society (DVD)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n
\n\"Walt<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nWalt Whitman<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

US (1819 \u2013 1892) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a> : Transcendentalist<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Walt Whitman grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island. He trained as a printer starting at the age of twelve. He learned to love the written word and read all he could. In his late teens he became a teacher, then turned to journalism in his 20s, eventually moving to New Orleans as editor of a local newspaper. Having witnessed the cruelties of slavery in the South, he returned to Brooklyn as a confirmed abolitionist. Whitman self-published the first edition of what would come to be seen as his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, in 1855, revising it several times in subsequent years. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman worked as a reporter and aided the wounded in local hospitals. Whitman struggled financially for many years, but with the successful publication of the 1882 edition of Leaves of Grass he finally began to earn enough money to purchase a house and live comfortably through his final years.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Walt Whitman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the grass? by Walt Whitman A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands, How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[693,1884,1302,901,816,75],"class_list":["post-8330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-death","tag-death-as-teacher","tag-grass","tag-life","tag-song-of-myself","tag-walt-whitman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8331,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8330\/revisions\/8331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}