Grass Seed

Knowing the tropical storm may dump 5 inches of rain on Connecticut, I spread grass seed across my lawn and a special shade mix under my trees. We shall see. I feel smart that I was proactive enough to get seed, but also silly because who knows if it will work. I don't own the home, but the mud that occurs from heavy rain at this house is not sightly. So, I'm trying. And I'm thinking of Walt Whitman. I'm missing home ownership where I can dig my hands into the soil and invest in the aesthetics of the earth. And I'm procrastinating the planning that needs to get done for a frantic week ahead. Planting instead of planning.... 

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 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 of 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 among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give it 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 your 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.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of 
old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the fain red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come form the roofs of mouths.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
and the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring 
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there really is no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward...and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed,
and luckier.