Them unplowed unmowed fields I seek
(All grasses belong to Whitman, you know!)
Them fields aplenty where I dwelt a childy
thing
And made ink of it like grasshopper juice
And dreamed of papyrus scrolls
(All images of grass belong to Whitman, you
know!)
Am I weak that I want to go home?
Well then! Then I am weak and let me go
Melt on into it like blood into its purpose.
Like a fluid point. Like is not the rain
one thing?
That which blends the all-bending globe
Into one rounded point not in two dimensions
But a multi universe of planets and planets
And suns upon suns? Oh fools go to
your jokes,
Ye little ones, embarrassed that bombs should
kill
And bomber pilots send bombs and generals
Send pilots and politicians send generals
And we send politicians and so the dead
Lie in our beds at night or even in the day
Even in the spring. Even in a spring such
as this
When we ourselves are spring's fever,
Love's fever, death's fever, life's fever.
Oh let the grasses grow, oh, green grow the
Grasses o! and Shakespeare and Whitman lie
Beneath the grasses o! and Frost, too. And
Sandburg
Said o! pile the bodies high at austerlitz
and waterloo
And let the grasses do their work oh!
Let the grasses do their work oh!
I long to tarry by the river where the ships
and boats
And rafts and skiffs and barges and canoes
skim
And dip and mark twain and angels like dragonflies
And glowworms dart and drift like daydreams,
Like ballets using old energies that once
turned
Into bellicosity which turned fine boys into
martial idiots.
I dreamed of grass in peacetime. I
dreamed of peace in time.
I dreamed of peace in the grass. I
dreamed of time
In the peaceful grass when green grows the
peace o!
Peace! O! Peace! O! I dreamed of green!
I dreamed of lingering in the green grass
by the old
Man River who dreams of peace with the white
man
And the Lakota and the Peking man and the
women
Them that's young and not and thems that's
old all of 'em
Peace peace peace along the Nile and the
Ganges
And the Yellow and the Danube and the Amazon
And peace everywhere on and by and far from
The great whale water ways.
Let the water flow and let the grasses grow.
And the corn and the great bamboo
Grass let it all grow. Let the green
grass grow.
Let the tundra and the reeds and the hemp
weeds,
That's grass only by name-- but let it all
grow o.
Let the sugar cane and wheat and rye and
barley grow.
Let me walk by the water in summertime
A child of peace. Let me rest my head
at night
On Buddha's Everest breast o! and stand still
at
Sunrise amidst the rushes o! while the sun
rises
O! having come from where on the earth O
it now
Is dark and peaceful there oh! as it is day
o
And peaceful now on the sun side of the earth
o!
Soon soon soon enough
Without war we all will become the
Green green grasses o!
Oh let the grasses green grow
And let our hatreds now go
And old debts no more owe
Helping brother hoe
And sister with her row
As we reap what we sow
And then bake the dough
And break bread o
Amongst all not leaving one foe
Not a friend to know
And let the winter wind blow
As we wake from status quo
Nightmares that held us all low.
Oh let the green grass grow.
Let the grass do its work o,
And let all the people go
Free amid the green green grass o!
Miranda Joan Howe
copyright 1999, all rights reserved