Perhaps I took a bit of a risk by alluding to "size isn't everything" in a room full of adolescent testosterone. I couldn't help it. As we continued talking about Henry David Thoreau's "Battle of the Ants," I remembered Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself 31," quoted here:
"I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars.
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand and the egg of the wren
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels . . ."
When I read it to them and explained that a pismire is an ant, I swear I could hear I collective groan. "Can't she get over the ants?" the groan seemed to say. When I told them that Whitman's whole transcendental point is that "size isn't everything," at least I had their attention.
I love Whitman. I want them to love Whitman, and maybe some of them will. That's why I keep teaching.
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