Ramblings

Emerson and Thoreau were men of firm beliefs, with important points to make and ideas to get across (Emerson perhaps more than Thoreau). Though while I find their writing interesting, I cannot claim to agree with or to fully understand much of what they say. Whitman, however, feels as if he is giving voice to my childhood experiences, describing my memories in the words that were beyond me at that time. Not all of Song of Myself feels that way, of course, but the sections that do are to me like the warm, nostalgic (but not melancholy) feeling one gets when catching a whiff of some scent that brings vivid scenes of winter evenings at one's grandmother's, or whatever it may be. "The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag" elegantly sums up cumulative hours I would spend laying in the woods, watching the wind blow. It would gently toss the aspens about, so that the sun would shine one moment through a slightly yellowed , paper-thin leaf and then that leaf would flutter away, only for the next breeze to bring it back to that place again. I haven't watched the trees in a long time. They are still just as beautiful in their simplicity I'm sure, but I suppose Emerson was right; "few people see the sun". The rest of that particular stanza of Whitman's resonated just as deeply with me, but the remainder of the poem did not do so until towards the end of our excerpts (section 6). "A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands, How could I answer the child? I do not know more than he." This, and the entire grass section following, was so beautiful and so profoundly true, it is my favorite of the passages we have read thus far. It reminds me of the song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", though I can't quite say why. Its a rather morose notion, but I find it somewhat comforting, the fact that we all turn to grass in the end. No matter rich or poor, what race or religion, no matter what principles we might have fought and died for in life, we grow into grass alongside lifelong enemies, or strangers, of those that we loved. "The smallest sprout shows that there is no death". All three transcendentalists express the desire to become a part of nature, which every one of us eventually does. We will all become the grass, and the rain, blow on the wind, float in the sea, cycle through the world as tiny particles of ourselves. I realize I'm not making much sense but Whitman says what I feel quite eloquently.

"If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you."