Though nothing can bring back the hour...

Do you know how sometimes, a fragment of a memory teases your brain? Nothing as robust or fully fleshed as something remembered, but an echo of a memory. A shadow?

"Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;"

I could hear a woman's voice, speaking these words. After searching, I discovered that they were spoken by Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass. Set to music by Single Gun Theory in "Take Me Back." Their album, Like Stars in my Hands, instantly transports me back to grad school. I can literally smell the yellowed paper and library dust. Feel the quiver of caffeine and little sleep and deadline-fueled research.

My present, this flower, lies thousands of miles, geographically and metaphorically, from that memory. My biggest and my smallest trooped into my office, bearing two flowers from the garden. A gift from them and from my current life, so different than what I'd imagined back then.

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


- William Wordsworth,
"Ode. Intimations of Immortality"