James Mc Elroy’s most recent poem to appear here was NYC (December 2012).

Nature Lover
By James Mc Elroy

An eminent critic on NPR reads that passage from Whitman where he asks,
“What is grass?”

When he stops reading he makes the point that we’ve lost the art of asking
questions in a digital age.

Emma, who has been listening without a sound, suddenly undoes the
straps of her car seat and scurries to the front of the van shouting into the
radio; shouting at the man who celebrates himself, and his choicest ideas,
on air.

“How can he say that, Dad? I’m interested in what grass is. I ask that
question all the time. And then there’s the question of life and where
animals come from and who created God who created nature which–as
you know, Daddy–I love so much.

…………………………………………………………….Both of us do, don’t we
………………………………….Dad?

So, how can the man on the radio say we don’t think about grass? How can
he know how hard it is, when you’re seven, to keep from jumping into
puddles or write a big book with pictures called The Birds of All Life–

…………………………………………………………………Right Daddy?
………………………………………………………………………………….Right?”