The World Is Too Much With Us

It's too much, you know. And it all closes in. Or maybe we cause it to close in--that's the part that's less than clear and all too distressing. We spin ourselves in circles, busy with doing, building, earning--but what good is any of it?

Look at what we're losing: the sky, the sea, the feeling that you get when your heart swells because you're looking at something so beautiful that your soul can't endure it.

We don't see things anymore. We just do what we do, oblivious.

I long for my eyes to be opened so I can see things the way they were before everything got so busy, so full. I want to find my eyes wide with wonder at the large-scale majesty of it all. I want to imagine that the sea is indeed its own living force, that it is called to motion or to stillness by the sound of the mighty Triton's horn. I want to believe that if I watched long enough, the god of the sea would arise triumphant from the waves. But I don't believe these things. What I believe is, alas, far too predictable and far too small.

If I saw the world through eyes that valued the strength, power, and beauty that I observed, maybe things would matter again. These things make the world big again, wild, free. Not the ever-shrinking sink-hole that seems to surround me.

The world really is too much with us.... (Thinking of you, Wordsworth.)