Analyzing the Text
“Or I guess” audibly ties together stanzas 3, 4 and 5. Each time “Or I guess” is repeated the idea of what grass is becomes more abstract and undefined. It begins as a product of God, then it becomes the child of nature and it ends as a free thing moving independently across race.
Making it a list emphasizes the sound of “old men and mothers” (24), “you and old men” (25), “women and children” (26). The repetition and listing drills these words into the reader’s mind so that the conclusion of 27-32 makes sense. The change in form emphasizes a solution to the problem posed above.
The grass can be any number of things, but one of those things is life itself. The poet/speaker tell us “the smallest sprout shows there is really no death”(27) and in such, the continuance of life beyond the boundaries of time, race, location and situation. We see here the universal quality of grass/life.