What is the grass?

I just got done visiting my father's grave for the first time since we buried him last month.

The gravestone is not finished yet, so there is just a modest marker with his name on it. A coffin-shaped square of freshly-turned soil leaves little to the imagination as to where exactly my father's body lies.

Walt Whitman said that grass is the "uncut hair of graves". Until the grass seeds begin to sprout, Dad's grave site will be as bald as his head.

The next time I am able to visit, the grave may be covered in snow. It may not be until next summer that I can see him coated in lush greenness. I look forward to laying in that grass and reading dad some Whitman from his dog-eared copy of Leaves of Grass.

My father worked in Education his entire life, sometimes as a teacher. What was there in him is there in me; but I work with a different population than he usually did. Is it my job to make them appreciate Whitman the way I do or to show them through Whitman how to appreciate something else? Can we really say, with the economy in the crapper and the United States ranking far below most first-world countries in test scores, that "appreciation" is a luxury our kids can afford? I'm not sure, but I did think that would be a good way to transition a very personal post into a professionally relevant reflection.