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# Leaves of Grass
- URL: https://www.andyposner.org/leaves-of-grass/
- Published: 2025-04-14T01:14:15.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-21T01:16:23.000Z
- Description: I abhor the grass, the leaves that turn to blades under the whetstone of heat, the worms, blind and desperate and slippery, that wriggle forth in the wet, the sucking of mud on bare feet...
- Author: Andy
- Tags: America on the Brink, Be The Change, poetry, #Migrated-1784090317409, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-15 04:39

*After Whitman*

I abhor the grass, the leaves that turn to blades  
under the whetstone of heat, the worms, blind  
and desperate and slippery, that wriggle forth  
in the wet, the sucking of mud on bare feet...

We drive through Camarillo, past strawberry  
and alfalfa fields, on another triple-digit day,  
come upon a sod farm, expansive and endless  
like the horizon at sea, bright green in a land  
that hasn’t seen a drop of rain for months...

O America, do not your fields of grass—median strips,  
those ill-tended patches behind gas stations and  
strip clubs, the manicured, cruel, and curling  
fingers of the South Lawn of the White House—  
law waste to the idea that you are  
[*Perennial with the Earth*](https://poets.org/poem/america-1?ref=andyposner.org)*, with Freedom,* 
*Law and Love*?...

And as you devour your once deep and replenishing wells,  
what will become of your Bougainvillea, your Oaks:  
the flowers that adorn your heroic graves, and your people  
[*Singing with open mouths*](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46480/i-hear-america-singing?ref=andyposner.org) *their strong melodious songs*?