Have I Forgotten Something Wonderful About Myself?
Trailing clouds of glory
In his ‘Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’, the famous Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote the oft-quoted phrase:
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
Whenever I read these lines they conjure an exquisite image of me hurrying down York Street to the post office during lunch break, a luminous mist drifting behind me like a long royal wedding veil caught in a light breeze.
The poem unfolds the notion that I really come from somewhere else. But by the time I birth on Earth I’ve almost forgotten this other aspect of myself.
However, occasionally I see or hear something that transfixes me. It may be a birdcall, rainbow light, sounds of the sea, a starry night.
Whatever it is, it reminds me of something — but I’m not quite sure what. It’s like a half-remembered love song that slips in and out of my consciousness.
These hints — these intimations of immortality — fill me with momentary, inexplicable, boundless joy. They are faint reminders that there’s more to me than I think; that I am loved not only here, but elsewhere.
