The child asks, bringing it to me in handfuls.
We stop at the Walt Whitman Service Area-
No sign of Him save some "Democratic Vistas"
& "Drum Taps" on a plaque near the Micky D's

Let's go find the grass
I say to my two-year-old beauty and
We pick one blade from the median
Then back we go in the forever car

Hours later, pulling into Richmond
She, half awake in my arms mumbles

Let's go find the grass


About this poem
"This snapshot poem's title is taken from [Walt] Whitman's ever-generative 'Song of Myself,' when a child asks a question that grows into 'Leaves of Grass.' My poem answers from the middle of the mother-daughter dyad, touching on a new human's relation to memory, dream and the shared hunger for a lullaby of green amidst the cloned cookie-cutter rest stops of modern America."
-Lee Ann Brown

About Lee Ann Brown
Lee Ann Brown is the author of "Crowns of Charlotte" (Carolina Wren Press, 2013). She teaches at St. John's University and lives in New York City.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2014 Lee Ann Brown. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate