The Grasses

This piece contrasts an excerpt from Walt Whitman's preface to Leaves of Grass with 1 Peter 1:24 "All flesh is as grass...", otherwise known as the best part of the the thoroughly excellent Brahms Requiem.  Whitman's text urges us to think for ourselves and do the right thing, letting our lives speak for our morals. The biblical passage reminds us that our lives are beautiful, but short, lending urgency to Whitman's words.  There is only so much time.  

“…read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body...” -Walt Whitman

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 1 Peter 1:24