"A Child said, What is the grass?" My Grandson and Walt Whitman

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 . . . . [Walt Whitman]#

This baby, my grandson, breaks my heart,

and makes it sing!

Walt Whitman and St. Paul Agree on Something: Sanctity of the Human Body

Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? . . .

for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.

This is from one of our readings at mass on November 9, 2014. St. Paul, 1 Corinthians, verses 16-17 (with some editing by me--St. Paul can often stand some editing)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,

No matter who it is, it is sacred . . . [Walt Whitman, "I Sing the Body Electric"]

Here is Part 9 of Whitman's great poem:

9

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,

I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)

I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,

Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,

Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,

Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,

Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,

Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,

Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,

Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,

Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,

Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,

Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,

Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,

Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;

All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,

The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,

The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,

Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,

Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,

The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,

Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,

Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,

The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,

The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,

The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,

The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,

The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,

The exquisite realization of health;

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,

O I say now these are the soul! #

Walt Whitman truly believed that the human body is the Temple of God. There doesn't seem to be any ambivalence in him. He sings the body in most all his poems.

Two Poems for Walt Whitman

I. Walt Whitman's Birthplace--Town of Huntington, West Hills, Long Island

There, just south of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin & Robbins,

Just west of Bed, Bath & Beyond and Five Guys Burger and Fries . . .

The farmhouse where Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819.

This is America's Bethlehem,

Birthplace of her greatest poet,

This farmstead, swimming in an ocean of parking lots and store franchises,

On Old Walt Whitman Road.

What would young Walt,

Full of love, sympathy, and lust,

(and when justified, prophetic anger),

What would young WW, great lover of the natural world,

Think of this place,

As it now stands?

II. Walt Whitman's Death House--Camden, New Jersey

Stone's throw from the Delaware River,

Across the water from historic Philadelphia,

Camden, America’s poorest big city, most desperate,

Third World failure of America and Democracy—

What would the great optimistic poet, the great poet of Democracy

Think of Camden now? He loved this city,

This little house, his shanty as he called it, right there on Mickle Street,

Now called Martin Luther King Boulevard,
In sight of Camden County Jail.

This is America’s Golgotha, place of the skull,

City where the great poet died,

The city not yet redeemed. What would Walt think?

                                    [Robert M. Coughlin / August 20, 2014]

Robin Williams, the Great Actor and Comedian, Joins the Dead Poets Society

I was so deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Robin Williams yesterday. He was the greatest comedian (the word seems too puny for his talent) of our generation, and a terrific actor. Of all the work he did, the one role that moved me the most was his portrayal of John Keating in the move The Dead Poets Society. Robin Williams made you believe in the humanity of this man, his love for his students, and his belief in art as a redeeming force, a humanizing force.

Robin Williams' death seems to have been caused by the combined terrible forces of depression and addiction. Like so many geniuses before him, he walked the friable edge of sanity, and lost that battle as so many do. But he gave the world so much goodness, joy, deep humanity, love. To be a great artist is to be a great lover. That is his redemption. His likes will never be seen again.

May perpetual Light shine upon him!

Looking at the world from a different perspective.

Boys,the powerful play goes on. What will your verse be?

Walt Whitman--Greatest American Poet

Here is a segment of Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself," found in his book Leaves of Grass.

5

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,

How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,

And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.

Whitman is our greatest poet. He was a hundred years in front of American poetry when he wrote "Song of Myself" and Leaves of Grace. He is still in the forefront, both in his expansive and loving treatment of human beings and all of Creation, and in his poetic style. Stanza 2 above is so beautiful: 

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.

He asks his lover (who might be any human being--you, me, us) to "loose the stop from your throat." He wants us to speak out, sing out, hum out--he loves the very lull, the music of another person's voice. He calls it "your valved voice" -- as if it were a trumpet!

A bit later in the poem he writes these beautiful words, connecting God, you, me, him, and love:

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love . . . .

This is genuine Walt Whitman. This is America's greatest poet.

Mardi Gras Advice from Walt Whitman

Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not
detain’d!

Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf
unopen’d!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! Let the money remain
unearn’d!
Let the school stand! Mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! Let the lawyer plead in the
court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

(Walt Whitman,  excerpt from “Song of the Open Road”)

This poem makes me think of Kenny Przybylski and Timmy Jenkins. And a bit of my daughter Carolan. The one obscure word above, "allons," is French for "let us go."

Great Walt Whitman Poem

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.


Walt Whitman is the father of modern American poetry (there was a long pregnancy, a long gestation!). He is the greatest American poet (along with Galway Kinnell, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Li-Young Lee, E.E. Cummings, Wallace Stevens, and a dozen others). The poem above never particularly struck me until I read the analysis written by one of my students.

I like the prayer-like or hymn-like quality of this poem with the repetition of "o my soul." This somewhat mournful (yet not mournful) refrain makes the poem so human, so full of feeling. This poet's soul is an adventurer, a seeker, living in a rather lonely and scary environment: "Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space." He sends forth, ventures out, seeks, throws, launches these filaments of hope, trying to connect with the wonders of the universe (which I take to mean both things and people). It's an act of faith, an act of hope. Walt Whitman has written a great prayer, and I pray that prayer too, o my soul!