After reading this poem over and over again, I was left with graphic images that left much for reflection. I saw a war torn field filled stacked with corpses, bloodied soldiers compiling the bodies of their fellow comrades, and a graveyard with no headstones bordered by railroad tracks. I really loved the intensity of this poem. I love Sandburg’s choice of words; specifically the verbs pile, shovel and work. I repeated these words out loud and it added to the brevity and intensity of the image of death depicted in this poem. Men had fought and died in an unnatural way and now they were being disposed into nature, into the ground.
“Shovel them under and let me work—I am the grass; I cover all” (1439)
I felt this to be very symbolic to the natural order of God’s creation in that we are made from the earth and to the earth we will return. I immediately went to Genesis 3.19 which says:
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. For you were made from dust and from dust you will return.”
I could be reaching here but I see a contrast with Sandburg’s poem and Genesis 3.19. Adam and Eve had lived in a perfect and beautiful naturally ordered world, had just chosen sin against God and because of that choice, were thrown out into an unnatural world, or a “battlefield”. Everything that was ordered and perfect was now in chaos. Adam and every person after him would have to fight and toil and battle for survival. With their choice, sin entered into the world. All that was unnatural: Death, pain, loss, hatred, and war became a part of the once perfect world. I see the consequences of mankind’s actions when I read this poem. In every war I have ever read about it has been about power. That is exactly what led Adam and Eve to sin. They wanted power; they wanted to be like God.
In Sandburg’s poem, I see the grass speaking. It is a resting place, a healing agent; “it covers all”. The grass is mentioned in the beginning of the poem and also at the end; connecting the whole. It is covering all that has happened, every battle, every fallen man. Not erasing but covering over and healing. All of the men are lost but not forgotten and we see that in lines 7-9:
“Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this? Where are we now?”
No matter how many years have passed, the battles and the men who fought and lost their lives in those battles are remembered. They are laid to rest in the earth. For from the earth they came, and to the earth they returned.
I like his used of detail in the beginning, you picturing it in your head and you almost in a sense feel like you seeing it from a first account. I enjoy how detailed Sandburg is in his poems
ReplyDeleteI too was most interested in this poem of Sandburg's. I think reading this poem from the perspective of the grass is definitely a unique one. Not often are we looking at war from the perspective of nature, so this viewpoint was much welcomed. And like you Kara, this poem left me to ponder the images this poem creates.
ReplyDeleteI liked your compare and contrast between "Grass" and Genesis. It's something I haven't thought of before. I also liked how you mentioned Sandburg's word choices: "Pile" and "shovel" bring very vivid images and it worked well.
ReplyDeleteVery nicely written overview. I loved how you connected the images of the grass with Biblical themes. Along with that, the grass could also be taken as a metaphor for renewal. Every season brings a new set of grass. Likewise, in every season of war there are a new set of fallen soldiers, but their legacy remains.
ReplyDeleteThe way you compare this passage with Genesis offers a thought-provoking perspective. I think the way you interpreted the ending is interesting. I read the two lines you quote at the end as more of a reflection on the way people forget, than as a remembrance of the dead.
ReplyDeleteVery nice comparison to Genesis. It makes sense that since we are from the earth, we will return to it. And "Grass" reminded me of a poem by William Cullen Bryant called "Thanatopsis" in this way. Please forgive the long quote :)
ReplyDelete"Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 25
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould."
Just like the animals, we decompose and disappear. When I read "Grass" I thought of the sort of "all-encompassing" thing that is death; it existed before we lived, we ourselves will die, and people after us will die. There is a kind of morbid unity that nature has in this regard. And one that we cannot do anything about, which is what I took Sandburg's lines about forgetting the past battles and people to mean; the chaos and upheaval of the world is merely a blip on a radar that quickly vanishes. Nature continues with or without us.