Spring Grass (Considered)

Universalist National Memorial Church, date unknown. Late 90s, or maybe 2000.

I climbed rocks this weekend. I sat in a memorial garden. I tossed a football through trees. I named the moon and the super-hero within me. You do such things when you are the chaplain at a gathering of UU college students in suburban Philadelphia as I was this weekend.

It had been years since I was on a playground. Too long really. How long has it been since you touched the ground, felt connected to it. The spring grass.

Come up spring grass, if only for young feet.

One of the superheroes this weekend was De-Ageifier, living inside a woman from Vassar named Laura, nicknamed Rex. She could make the young old and the old young. That was the superhero she claimed for herself, the one she wanted to be.

Spring grass makes the old young again, super hero that it is.

Carl Sandburg wanted to hold a dance in honor of spring grass. What image came to mind when the poet smelled the spring grass, invoked the grass riding on the wind horses? What made you feel — deep inside of you — the end of winter and the arrival of something new?

Did you smell the wind rustling through spring heather? Did you celebrate the ants victory — yet again — at a picnic, their persistence, their claiming the raspberry jam you bought special from Sutton Place? Did you congratulate them on a job well done.

Powell Davies said that Spring was the waiting time. Who has not longed for Spring’s arrival. The bare limbs of winter trees outside the house are tolerable only so long. The bleak, open spaces — demanding attention — are to be honored and tended. The new growth causes us to dance, and there is something sacred there.

—

Who did you call, did you hug, when 800,000 people perished in 100 days in Rwanda, six years ago? The grass grows at Gettysburg. The grass grows at a plantation in Greensboro. The grass grows in Rwanda.

There are hush harbors, even now, awaiting the Spring Grass, the dawning of the new.

—

You’ve seen, undoubtedly, the intersection of Whitehaven and Wisconsin. Just behind the large bureaucratic building, non-descript in every way, there is an entrance, by way of dancing feet, to Rock Creek Park. If you walk just beyond the initial forested trails, you come to a large clearing. Behind a tree with twisted trunk is a bench with lovers on it. You won’t be surprised to learn that though there is plenty of space on the bench, you’ll find them huddled in the middle.

If you have never heard live jazz, you still likely know that life comforts you in the least likely way. Dance young feet this is your lucky year.

— -

Spring Grass, Carl Sandburg

Spring grass, there is a dance to be danced for you.
Come up, spring grass, if only for young feet.
Come up, spring grass, young feet ask you.

Smell of the young spring grass,
You’re a mascot riding on the wind horses.
You came to my nose and spiffed me. This is your lucky year.

Young spring grass just after the winter,
Shoots of the big green whisper of the year,
Come up, if only for young feet.
Come up, young feet ask you.