Walt Whitman, What is the Grass?

"I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer 

grass....

A child said What is the grass? 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 dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may
see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass 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"

Walt Whitman's meditation on grass, in his poem Song of Myself, shows the various perspectives one can adopt when viewing something. This kind of perspectivism and open mindedness, this recognition of the multi-dimensional nature of things, is prescient of many developments in society and culture that came after it, such as Quantum Mechanics and Cubism. I also find his use of the word "heiroglyphic" interesting, implying that reality is information or code; this is particularly prescient. Whitman was clearly a deep mystic, who experienced reailty in a raw way.