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.