Ode To The Big Four

Consider this a tongue-in-cheek poem dedicated to, and inspired by, the big four American poets: Whitman, Longfellow, Dickinson and Frost. Well, others might consider other poets for this lofty group, but to me they're our top four of all time.

The common theme here is "grass" -- I figure it starts with grass, so for symmetry's sake I kept it throughout.

--

I scratch myself, and bathe myself.
And what you know, I know.
And what you know I know, I know you know I know.

Behold the grass. Isn't it cool?
I hear it speak, and it speaks in the tongues of
Squirrels and of bugs;
They speak of the newness of yore,
And the antiquity of birth.
The squirrels and bugs converse with me
For I am the force animalia incarnate,
And also because I have a special animal-linguistic hearing aid.

I am sweat; I hear my own sweat purr,
Like a cat on the lap of a silk-pajama-wearing
Largesse-spreader, spreading fertilizer on the
Fertile soil-soul of the cat.

I am the cat. I celebrate the cat,
And she celebrates me.
She and I look at this single blade of grass and think,
"Wow... now this is something about which to write a hundred pages."

The sun rises, the sun sets
The renter rents, the landlord lets
O'er the globe, green grass grows,
Its birthright-height halted when the mower mows.
And the sun rises, the sun sets.

I never saw such grass but twice,
And that was on TV:
Bluegrass at Lambeau, fake grass'd Camp Randall
A fan was I, then grass-bereaved.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
To my kindred, here or on high:
A squirrel pooped on the lawn, and I --
I paid a migrant worker to recruit some flies,
And they made quick work of the mess.

--TPS

Sources/inspiration:

"Song of Myself" -- Walt Whitman

"The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"(poem number) 49" -- Emily Dickinson

"The Road Not Taken" -- Robert Frost