If I had asked my daddy about William Wordsworth, likely he would have said, “Is he from over in Jones County somewhere? I don’t believe I know him.”
That’s no bad reflection on Daddy or anybody else of his generation. Centuries-old English poets weren’t taught that much in rural Mississippi schools during Daddy’s time, and anyway, he would have been more interested in girls and sports.
Without realizing it, however, Daddy taught me some of the same lessons Wordsworth writes about in his poems: “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man.”
Wordsworth goes on to write about “natural piety” which is basically his celebration of the beauty, purity and goodness which can be found in natural settings. On a late fall day last year in Alamosa, Colorado, I looked up and beheld what appeared to be a double rainbow, something I had never seen before. It made me remember some of the rainbows Daddy and I chased on Dykes Chapel Road all those years ago, and the one a friend and I recently paused to admire from Mississippi as we looked over the expansive river into Louisiana.
It also made me remember the pots of gold at the ends of the rainbows, the ones Daddy and I never found, or maybe we did. Maybe the pots of gold were metaphorical, not literal, and they took form in the moments Daddy and I shared in the simple pastime of appreciating beauty in its most natural form.
It seems to me the heart of Wordsworth’s poem and a line much debated for its meaning is the one about the child fathering the man. My interpretation, for what it is or isn’t worth, is simply that the prize we gain for the loss of innocence comes in the acquisition of wisdom. Our adulthood challenges, modifies, validates and enhances the fundamental lessons and beliefs of our youth.
I have also heard it said that the older we get, the smarter our parents become. I am guessing that has to do with how we clarify and experience for ourselves the lessons they tried so hard to teach us. My daddy and I did not always agree, as many fathers and sons do not, but I value the lessons he tried to teach me, both the ones I learned and the ones I did not accept.
One of his most special and important lessons was to give natural beauty the time and the space it deserves. It is not guaranteed to come again, and what a shame to have missed it.
Email reaches former Columbus resident David Creel at [email protected].
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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