A few things intrigued me about this poem. The first thing
that I noticed was the selection of battles that Sandburg chose. They span 2
continents and 3 wars. But all of them have one thing in common: a staggering
number of casualties. I believe that Sandburg was trying to comment on the
universality of both war and nature. The large gap in time between the battles
implies repetition. The grass, which represents nature at large, spans both
space and time. It is all encompassing. This idea is also suggested by the
somewhat confusing lines: “Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the
conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now? / I am the grass. / Let me
work.” War is petty to nature.
The ending lines of the poem also suggest that when it comes
to war, history repeats itself. Horrible battles continue to occur and people
are none the wiser. Ultimately the grass covers up the sites and humanity
begins to forget its mistakes. There is no physical reminder of the tens of
thousands of deaths which occurred at each battle. Sandburg is commenting on
the fact that people tend to quickly forget the horror of war during peacetime,
and perhaps that is why we are bound to repeatedly fight one another.
I think your idea that these wars were chosen for their numerous casualties is important. I think to take it even farther, he goes to show that grass will grow over any war and can eventually cover the deaths. The idea of grass is an interesting one in the sense of what it takes to grow grass. It takes a bare spot to require grass be planted there. While it is fresh a lot of attention is paid to it but after it has settled, the importance falls and it is eventually forgotten. This is similar to the battles that are mentioned that are eventually covered by grass because right after the wars, the areas where they piled the soldiers, becomes less important as years pass.
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