that every atom in him belongs to everyone else He also says that every atom of his blood was formed from the soil nbsp Every atom of my blood form d from this soil this air nbsp This shows his belief that human life is connected to everything in nature When we die we simply return to this natural world He does not separate life and death He treats them as two steps of the same journey nbsp When he watches the grass the trees the air and the sunlight he feels they all hold a message They remind him that nothing stops in nature Everything continues in another form So death for Whitman is not darkness or fear It is just a continuation of living nbsp The Grass as a Symbol of Immortality One of the most beautiful and important ideas about immortality appears in Section A child asks Whitman nbsp What is the grass nbsp Whitman tries many answers Each answer shows his belief in life after death He guesses that grass might be the uncut hair of graves It means the grass grows from the soil where people are buried So for Whitman grass is a sign of new life He says nbsp The smallest sprout shows there is really no death nbsp This means even the tiniest plant proves that life continues Something always grows from what dies For him death is not an end It is a change a beginning of something else This is Whitman s idea of immortality nbsp The Soul and Its Endless Life Whitman also believes strongly in the immortality of the soul In Section he talks to his own soul and feels a deep peace He says that everyone men women young old is part of one large spiritual family This united soul can never die So immortality for him is both personal and universal nbsp Death as Transformation At the end of the poem especially in Sections and Whitman prepares to leave the physical world He is not afraid He becomes even more confident about immortality He says nbsp I depart as air nbsp This means he will become part of the wind the sky and the natural world His body will return to the earth His spirit will remain with the people who read his words nbsp He even tells the reader to look for him under their boot-soles This shows that he believes he will live again in the soil the grass and the life of nature He promises that even if people do not understand him at first he will still give them good health This means his spirit ideas and energy will continue to help others Death cannot remove him He becomes part of everything nbsp In conclusion Whitman s idea of death and immortality in Song of Myself is full of hope comfort and unity He sees death as a return to nature not as an ending He believes the soul is eternal and nature shows this truth through the growing grass and the endless cycle of life In this poem immortality means becoming one with the universe and living on in every part of the natural world