Loading Likes... While I loved all of the poems in this collection, poem #6 stuck out to me the most because of its imagery and the ending. I felt the message of the poem was very similar to Buddhist ideologies, both the concept that all beings are connected and that death is a central part of the cycle of life. Whitman took a blade of grass, which is something so small and easily overlooked, and brought it to life with the meaning it holds. He saw the way it connects to us all, “growing among black folks as among white” (1316, line 107) and transpiring from young men and mother’s laps, because he saw how it shares life with us like any other living being in nature. He connects each young and old man, or mother’s offspring, with a blade of grass that dies and grows again. In this metaphor, he concludes with his thoughts about death that echo Buddhist ideology like a mirror, saying, “The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life” (1317, lines 126-7). This poem felt so grounded in experience to me and also made me think back to Emerson’s “Nature” where he implores us to look into nature to find the truth about humanity. In a sense, I think that is exactly what Whitman has done here, by sitting with grass and finding meaning in it.