Splendor in the Grass

It was not a particularly beautiful morning when I did my daily run today. The fog was so thick, it fell onto my head, impersonating sweat. I searched through the mist to find signs of other early-morning humans, but it seems that I was at the park so early, I pretty much had the place to myself. Or so I thought. As the day brightened, it revealed a world full of critters, mostly rabbits and birds. For a moment, I considered the eeriness of inhabiting the natural world as non-human creatures do. No clocks, no phones, no possessions. Just basic survival instincts. I felt like an intruder in a country that spoke a different language. I longed for the freedom of wings, the strength of long back legs that can leap great distances, the ability to sort through thousands of scents with olfactory receptors that vastly outnumber mine.

Passing by a collection of bunnies in a recently mowed grassy field, my memory dredged up part of a poem that I'd memorized when I was a teenager. This William Wordsworth poem (over 200 years old) may sound familiar to you, as a line in it became the title of a classic 1961 movie. The poem is titled "Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," and the lines I memorized so long ago are these:

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower
We will grieve not, rather find 
Strength in what remains behind

If a vision of a young Natalie Wood just came into your head, you win Final Jeopardy. "What is 'Splendor in the Grass?'" A commentary on loss of innocence, the lines ask us to look beyond the ideology of youth and use those memories to try to find beauty and inspiration in the mundane, the everyday.

The next thing I knew, an old song was competing with the tunes that were emanating from my earbuds. Again, from an old movie, 1955's Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing. Although The Four Aces are best known for the song, I prefer the Andy Williams' version from 1962. The dramatic crescendos in the song poked my twelve-year-old soul the way that Michelangelo's masterpieces do. These lines in particular evoked images that set my heart on fire, eager for romantic love (specifically with Bobby Rydell):

Once, on a high and windy hill
In the morning mist, two lovers kissed
And the world stood still

Ah! This was what I had to look forward to! A many-splendored thing! Kudos to Sammy Fain and Paul Webster for this Oscar-winning song that gave me hope.

So the common denominator in these two memories is the word splendor, defined as "magnificent and splendid appearance, grandeur." I will eschew visions of gold-plated opulence and focus instead on the natural world. I have seen red rock canyons in the Southwest, the Northern Lights in the Arctic, coral reefs in Australia, volcanic basalt columns in Ireland, redwood forest groves in California, and bioluminescence in Vieques. Splendor, indeed.

And when I returned home from the park this morning, I watched a flock of wild turkeys make their way past my garden. Many-splendored, all of it.

The wild turkeys were too quick for me to get a picture, so here are some deer instead.