Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, January 19, 2008


Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

- Edgar Allen Poe, born on this day, 1809
(and died when he was 40)


I have a little book. In it, I write down phrases I find that would make good titles for a book or a chapter of a book or a Reflection. I have written down tonight, “the summer dream beneath the tamarind tree”. And, “treasure in the jeweled sky”. Lovely. Up till now, I have about 85 books to write.

How many young people today would know what Diana and her car were all about? Or what/who a Hamadryad or a Naiad was?? I don’t want to sound pissy, but I knew what they were before I left my regular old public High School in Verdun. When I listen to young people today ………. well, anyway, forget it, I don’t want to sound like “older adults” just yet! But I do think most public education stinks.

Is this poem a lament? I rather hope that Poe was poking fun. Poking fun at the silly people who thought that Lady Science had somehow killed the Muse of Poetry. I’ll tell you who killed the Muse of Poetry and the World of Summer Dreams under the Tamarind Tree.

Literalists. They’ve become the serial killers of countless victims, of which Poe names only a few. God is among them. And fairies. And wizards. And dragons that talk. And even the magical worlds under the tamarind trees. Against which modern Literalists rant and rave, often disguised as religionists.

Not for me, laddies! I exalt Lady Science. She has shown me What Is – and so freed my mind and spirit to see the wonders that flit and dance among the atoms and inhabit the parallel World of Mysteries.

Lady Science has not stolen my summer dream beneath the tamarind trees. She made me a gift of them!

Brian+