A child said, What is the gra**? 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 gra** 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 gra**
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 gra** 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 d**h
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