A Word's Worth

It was the first time this year I walked into work from lunchtime not wearing my coat. Come on Spring, just a little faster now!

I actually got to listen to Writer's Almanac this morning, I was so happy. Recently I haven't been able to because either someone comes to my desk to talk to me or the NPR application on my iPhone won't cooperate. Today, I narrowly escaped a lady who was headed towards my desk to talk to me for - and only for - the five minutes that Writer's Almanac is on. Since a bad incident on Thursday of last week when my boss decided to come to my desk and explain something to me right when I heard the piano intro to the Almanac on my earphones, I have decided to take my phone to the bathroom to listen. Nobody's ever dared bother me when I'm sitting on the toilet. My husband jokes that I need my daily dose of Garrison Keillor's voice. I think that's about right. But I really enjoy the different poems too.

Usually Garrison reads a poem on the segment from a current or contemporary writer, but today he read a literary classic and one of my favorites - an excerpt from "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth. Actually, I found it interesting to come across this poem again today, because I've recently been contemplating the exact feeling that Wordsworth describes with his verse. See, I always wondered - until I really sunk my teeth into Wordsworth's poetry - if I was the only one that felt like some brightness and crispness in the scenery was somehow lost with innocence and childhood. It sounds silly, but I remember that colors and dimensions looked somehow fuller and more defined at one point in my life. Now, I still see beauty in things like the poet says "The rainbow comes and goes,/ And lovely is the rose;", but without the same sort of halo of hope they all had when I was younger and less experienced in the world.



"The Voyage of Life, Youth" by Thomas Cole

I do miss this view of the universe I seem to have lost. But, I would not be able to identify so closely with Wordsworth's words if I had not known this loss. And the understanding of poetry is something I wouldn't give up for anything.

Thanks, Garrison Keillor, for making good poetry more accessible to us all.