My sister reminded me that it was poetry month. Well. I wonder who decided April would be the month for poetry? There is a line somewhere (movie, play?) that indicates that spring makes all men think they are poets, and therefore you get a lot of bad poems. I can't remember where it's from, but it made me laugh. I like this one...
Ode: Intimations of Immortality
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore;-
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day
The things which I have seen I now can see no more!
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.
- William Wordsworth
I remember the first time I felt this sentiment, and it was such a sad thing. Perhaps part can be reclaimed through effort, but the enchantment of childhood is steward of the other part, and as we move towards a different realm of worry and responsibility and knowledge (sin?) we lose some of the wonderment accompanying the "celestial light" of the world. Who was the poet (was it Wordsworth himself?) that believed we come from a state of innocence, experience knowledge and sin, and then come out on the other side renewed to a more advanced state of innocence? So, while we do not return to the original innocence we move forward to the innocence on the other side of life/knowledge/sin. I believe I would replace the word innocence (it's second use) with purity. Perhaps as we strive towards purity in this life we reclaim seeing the world as described. Innocence, to Knowledge/the Fall, to Purity; purity becomes an innocence by choice, therein comes it's power.
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