” “ethereal,” “the last athletic reality”(64). He goes on to purport this concept through an extended metaphor of the leaves of the calamus grass. According to him: Each of the attributes of the [calamus] plant suggests some aspect of the love of comrades: the size and toughness of the spears symbolize the depth and hardiness of such love: the distinctive odor suggests the spirituality of the attachments; growth in clusters suggests the two-fold results of the realization of such emotion: personal attachment and democracy; the seclusion of the plant indicates the rarity of such revolutionary friendships(71). While Whitman's ultimate goal may have been to attain this perfect spiritual love in which he feels a perfect democracy could easily be founded, he grapples with, and Miller fails to examine, sexual desire and consummation. Whitman fluctuated consistently between the complete satisfaction of the simple touch “holding [him] by the hand” and the “city of orgies” in which he participated and the sex of “we two boys together clinging.” And, while Miller’s extended metaphor of the calamus leaves may be sufficient if taken out of context of everything that Whitman ever wrote, it fails to work in the whole of Leaves of Grass, especially in the calamus chapter. Because, not only does Whitman refer to the blades as “the flag[s] of my disposition”, an easily discernible phallic symbol, the blades of the actual grass have long pointed leaves, yellow green spikes and sprawling tubers that resemble the penis in various stages of arousal. The blade, also, is named after the God Calamus who grieved by the river for the death of his boy lover who drowned. The Calamus section, while important as a section in its own right, needs to be taken in context with the ultimate push towards the ideal Americ...
