Expressively Silent

            Whitman is wandering around Washington like a flaneur, flowing through the channels of the city streets - he was born a ramblin' man.  He appears to be coming back from a night at the hospital where he deals with death and horror. The moon - outer space - becomes a sanctuary for him. The moon and space are some of the most uncertain things, especially for the time that Whitman was writing; there was only formulaic speculation. It's a dark,deep expanse of the uncertain; Whitman feels comfortable. He embraces the uncertain and strokes it lovingly.

          The moon is something that we look at all the time and writers compose prose of its beauty. The general public doesn't always notice the beauty of the moon, we continue on our walk home. We aren't loafing and enjoying the moon, we are trying to get somewhere. Whitman focuses on the moon however, describing it with adjectives more associated with life. He calls the moon "voluptuous" - a perverse catcall. The moon is commonly referred to as a female (luna) but has no "genetic" marker of gender. He sexualizes the moon, also calling it "moist" and "delicate." In Song of Myself, Whitman is very sexual but in a way that is abstract. He uses language that creates an idea for the reader but it is up to the reader to determine the actuality. The fact that I sexualize his words is a reflection of myself, just as Whitman would want it. I make these He recognizes that life can be seen in all things, even if we don't consider them to be "breathing." Blades of grass have life in them, the moon has life in it and all this coming from a man who just left an institution of death.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves

         He acknowledges that life is never really ending; by being buried in dirt, we are all reincarnated in a sense. Whitman would probably prefer that there be no coffin between the corpse and dirt, either way, coffins are built of impermanence and can decay as well. This line reminds me of spoon river anthology by Edgar Lee Masters whose poems depicted the lives of the dead. With each poem, grass seemed to grow in recognition of the dead’s life. Ghosts float through the blades of grass. What patches of grass have death hiding beneath them, and is it really death? The hackneyed concept that with death comes life, one door closes another one opens is relevant, but is this what Whitman is saying? Death and life are parts of the human “stink,” but I also see these lines acknowledging the history that life is built on.

          Grass is the most egalitarian plant; it can grow almost anywhere and is essentially equal. Grass, however, is not considered beautiful like roses or calla lilies, it is casually disregarded from being anything special. Flowers are fragile; most require certain locations to grow, certain temperatures among other fickle things. The democratic notion of equality is seen in the grass; grass can feed on the same things and is not that special looking – grass is every man/woman. Just lines prior, he states that it is a “uniform Hieroglyphic.” Uniform enforces the egalitarian idea of equality while hieroglyphic leaves one with a question. A hieroglyphic is an enigmatic symbol that is not fully comprehensible. Hieroglyphics are also apart of the Egyptian writing system – a form of communication, connection and understanding. The term has a conflicting meaning, so what does Whitman mean? Perhaps he is implying that grass and life are similar in form but are intrinsically complex: humans are all the same structure but do not all think exactly the same. To continue with the idea that grass is essentially growing out of the heads of graves – grass does not favor one skin color over another, it grows atop of any corpse. This reminds us that in death we are all equal despite what life (society) may tell us. A pile of bones is a pile of bones.