TO SARAH ROSE AND CHRISTOPHER, AND ESPECIALLY FOR SUSAN, WHO SAVED MY LIFE

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 remembrance designedly

dropt.

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

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

--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself