Walt Whitman and I share an appreciation for grass.

A child said, What is the grass?

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.
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 faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
for nothing.
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 is really 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.

A Poem by Mary Oliver

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Poetry on a Lovely Day

Dry leaves whisper
rain drop rhythms
tossed once by wind's approach
they rest now
a cat nap
under spring's
cold light.

Shadows and
a need to think in
the concrete
the poet's gaze muffled
by What?
cigarette butts and
small mountains of
brown-orange dirt
in the shade the
shadows bring.

Metropolis

Slow migration of
pedestrians striding,
striving in the city
Bright warmth
and bird song cadences
honk and buzz, neon
shocking your
optic nerves.

Stuff I like.

I was just now suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to share with you the things that have made my life more joyous lately:

I am currently drinking Peach Ginger Black Tea with a spoonful of sugar; it is delicious. Coffee is so rich and overwhelming after awhile and I feel that it makes me either too hyper or angsty as I come off the caffeine high. Black tea is a good alternative.

Today I sat on Landis Green for an hour, enjoying tea and a piece of Lindt chocolate in the breezy, sunny, 60 degree weather. I overheard interesting conversations and managed to get all of my Hebrew homework done. I felt very accomplished and very refreshed.

I bought Yael Naim's "New Soul" CD about a week and half ago and its all I've listened to since. She sings in Hebrew, French, and English and her musical style is very soothing, calm, and understated. Also, I understand a bit of what she says in Hebrew, which makes me terribly excited.

We're reading Feuerbach in my Critics of Religion class. Man, that guy is intriguing. Everything he critiques about nineteenth century protestant Christianity forces me to really think and reconsider what I believe. There are definitely some loopholes in his arguments, but I've really enjoyed analyzing his concepts within his book, "Essence of Christianity."

I love naps, starting this week. Falling asleep midmorning when the sun gently peaks through dorm windows and drifting off for a few minutes is wonderfully refreshing.

My yellow keds literally go with everything.

Homework efficiency relieves a lot of stress. I am ahead of schedule this week, getting in the groove of things.