Commentary: Famed ode springs to mind as he flees the rising summer sun

At this time of year when the light mornings summon all true hikers to lace up their boots early and get moving, it is already full daylight for the usual 6 a.m. start at the Angeles National Forest fire station on Angeles Crest Highway. But our local mountains are so steep — among the steepest in the U.S. — that though the sun is up, it is hidden behind Brown Mountain. (Did you know it was named for the legendary abolitionist family who inspired the song “John Brown’s Body” and whose son Owen is buried nearby?) The full moon is still visible high in the sky.

Even at that time there is normally no hint of cold and, as 7 o’clock arrives, we fair-skinned people begin to worry about too much heat rather than too little.

This week I have been able to act out another of the most famous poems in the English language, Andrew Marvell’s ode “To His Coy Mistress.” No, not the seduction part, unfortunately. Instead, I’ve felt the full impact of its apprehensiveness that time is passing too quickly. Or, as Marvell puts it, “But at my back I always hear time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near.”

This exact sensation came for me because in the last few days I have been at the highest point of the hike when the sun was still behind, but fast approaching, the top of the ridge on the other side of the valley and our side was about to change from gray to gold — first the peaks, then the section of the hill just below them and, then in a flood of light, the whole hillside sparkling as the sun bursts into sight.

Two or three times this past week I have started down before that moment in an exhilarating race, hoping to keep in the shadow of the mountains opposite, helped by the steeply dropping road, but with the sun speeding down the slope behind me.

I can see that in today’s environment Marvell, who says that if he had enough time he would spend a hundred years admiring his lady’s eyes, would likely find himself in a #MeToo lineup as a serious nuisance.

But the moral of the poem is much bigger, which is that while aging is inevitable all of us have the chance to seize the most of life and stay young at heart — and this race down our very own hills fitted that lesson from the 17th century more perfectly than any other occasion I can remember since I read the poem at school:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Reg Green is a writer who lives in La Cañada. His website is www.nicholasgreen.org