I'd also read the poem "Grass" by Carl Sandburg for this week. It's possible that I'm reading a bit far into it, but I thought it was almost nihilistic in its treatment towards the passage of time in marking human events. The wars keep going on, whether they're held in America or Europe, but the grass remains the most constant of the constants: it's always there to cover up our mistakes. The second-to-last and last stanzas really sealed that thought for me: "Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work."
No one will remember in time--and I can't even honestly say that I knew the relevance of most of these locations right off hand, either. It speaks something interesting about the impermanence of even our own inhumanities against each other.
I took the grass in the poem to symbolize healing. All the places listed are at peace now. The grass kind of symbolizes the healing, when someone is buried there is a hole and you can see where the grass was cut to make the hole. Over time the grass grows in and you can't see the hole anymore. It's healed
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Lonny, I felt as if it the meaning of the poem is natures way to restore itself and cover up the desctructive actions of humans. I makes me think of the proverb: Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it.
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