I.M. for Sister (10-31-71-05-07-11)

What do you think has become of the young and old men?/ And what do you think has become of the women and children?/ They are alive and well somewhere,/ The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,/ And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end arrest it,/ And ceas'd the moment life appear'd./ All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,/ And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. "What Is the Grass?" Walt Whitman