Beautiful Decay

This is an assignment I just finished for my Environmental Lit class.  I wanted to share it with all of my lovely readers because I think it's an important message (not that I'm biased or anything!)

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“Beautiful Decay”

Summary/Response Journal of Walt Whitman’s “This Compost”

Summary

“Behold this compost!  Behold it well!

Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person—yet behold!

The grass of spring covers the prairies,

The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden…

The summer growth is innocent and disdainful above all those strata of sour dead” (Whitman 63, 64).

This is the passage that defines Walt Whitman’s poem, “This Compost.”  He enlightens (and possibly disgusts) his readers with this fact: the dead bodies we bury in the ground will just rot and decompose into soil that tasty crops and beautiful trees spring from.  These gruesome corpses will yield resplendent roses. 

“O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken?

How can you be alive you growths of spring?

How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain?

Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you?” (Whitman 63). 

Whitman is amazed at the thought that although we throw diseased corpses into the earth, the earth is able to digest them without absorbing their disease.  He marvels at the wonder of decomposition and reconstitution that the earth performs on a deceased human body. 

“That when I recline on the grass I do not catch any disease,

Though probably every spear of grass rises out of what was once a catching disease” (Whitman 64).

Whitman also voices an interesting concern:

“I will run my furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn up underneath,

I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat” (Whitman 63). 

He is speculating at the possibility of accidentally digging up a dead body while plowing his fields; he is afraid of uncovering someone’s rotting flesh. 

Whitman continues to voice his amazement not only for the produce of the soil, but also for the wind and sea. 

“What chemistry!

That the winds are really not infectious,

That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea which is so amorous after me,

That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,

That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,

That all is clean forever and forever” (Whitman 64).

Whitman is not only amazed, but also horrified at this process as well.  It disturbs him and he ends his essay with words of terrified wonder for this most provoking recycling system.

“Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,

It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,

…It gives divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last” (Whitman 64).

Response

                My first reaction to this piece was a feeling of disgusted belief.   I looked at the half-eaten apple in my hand, horrified because Whitman’s words are so true.  This flawless work of art resting in my hand that had sprouted from the depths of the earth may very well have originated from the remains of a human body.  Initially, I wouldn’t have chosen such a piece to analyze.  I become squeamish when thinking of death and decay, preferring to change the subject if someone begins to speak of disease.  However, this piece gripped a part of me that was most peculiar.  In such beautiful words, Whitman described a disgusting thing—the decay of a human body transforming into something that we actually consume, literally eat.  It struck me with such an appreciation of his originality, his novelty, that I felt compelled to write about it.

                Whitman’s language throughout this piece is at times bizarre, disturbing, and provocative (among many other adjectives one could think of to describe the writings of a man who goes skinny dipping in the ocean, letting his lover the sea lick his naked body) but pushing past those innuendos, I felt a connection to his message.  I feel as though Whitman is trying to tell us something deeper than just the physical process he is describing.  I believe that although he writes about the tangible cycle of the decomposition and transformation of the human body by the earth, he is hinting at something much larger and abstract—the notion that the earth is on our side, even though all we put into it sometimes is our waste, the diseased corpses of the things that have no use to us anymore. 

As rain washes through a ditch on the side of the road, bathing and dissolving the endless cigarette butts and plastic bottles with the tears of the sky, the earth does her best to recycle, even when we humans fail to.  After so long, the earth takes back into her what we have discarded.  It doesn’t seem quite fair—the soil, trying its best to produce the best crop for the humans who cultivate it, has produced a round, ripe, perfect tomato that will be harvested, shipped off to the Burger King franchise, sliced and diced and thrown carelessly onto someone’s burger; then delivered through a drive-thru window in a greasy, convenient paper bag.  After mindlessly and thanklessly consuming this gift of nature turned fat and calorie-storehouse, the person who was lucky enough to be fed by the earth will throw that greasy bag right out of his car window because it’s no longer of use to him.  Its purpose has died, just as the people did in Whitman’s poem. 

The bag is thrown violently to the ground by the rushing wind of the car speeding away, and it settles into a roadside ditch.  Since it is paper, the rain will eventually cause it to disintegrate, forcing the earth to digest its decomposing elements.  When the earth has done so, something incredible happens.  A tiny sprout forms in the soil that holds the dissolved components of an old forgotten paper bag—a sprout that will grow into something beautiful, perhaps even harvestable.  The earth has given back, even though all that was originally given by man was an old piece of trash. 

The earth is on our side, even though sometimes it seems like all we want to do is kill her.  “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (King James Bible John 15:13).  The earth is dying for us; we are killing it.  But somehow, it still gives us what we need.  Whitman’s last statement is so true, even today.  This divine product of the earth that I hold in my hand, this perfect little apple, is a gift to me from the earth, potentially formed from the waste of someone’s paper bag (or, horrifically, someone’s dead uncle) and not once during the bites I’ve taken so far did I ever stop to say thank you.  I took for granted that there would always be apples in the bowl downstairs without realizing what they’re coming from.  The earth has set an example for us, and we should follow it—giving back not only by our death but also in the choices we make while still alive.  I don’t want to bequeath to the earth only my corpse’s “leavings” as Whitman says.  I want to present living gifts too—I wish to give back love to the earth because it gives love to me every time I grab an apple from the bowl.