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 I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer, designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say,
Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
A touch of poetry from the American master on this Columbus Day.
A reader in her comment below refers to this sermon by The Rev. Andrea Martin, The Way to the Kingdom. There is "teeming life" in the the tadpoles and in the grass blades. ( Auden and Lydia ).
I sat quietly on the "inviting boulder" ( Driving Miss Sunshine ) and this is what I saw. The stream did babble and the children did exclaim the wonders of creation.
