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 dropped
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

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
Zones
Growing among black folks as among white
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
Same, I receive them the same

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

Tenderly will I use you curling grass
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
From offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps
And here you are the mother's laps