Reliance on rhythms

Edgar Allen Poe is one of America's best loved poets for a reason. His poetry contains allusions to Greek mythology and are just chock full of melody, rhythm, and alliteration - all the ingredients that make poetry loveable.

That's a point I would like to make about life. It's full of rhythms, melodies, and reiterations (which is the same thing as alliteration but under a different non-literary name). The saying in our language that captures this idea is "the ebb and flow of life." My ebbs and flows are always worth looking back on. I always learn something new when I do that, either about how an event played out or how/what friends around me said or did. Sometimes I look back long range, sometimes very short range, but always I learn something.

One rhythm I have learned about by looking back is the rhythm of discerning shadows from reality. It's just one of the rhythms that beats loudly over the years. I have made mistakes in trusting shadows before. That's why reflection on those moving, illusive happenings yields better judgment. These days, I am surer of reality, knowing when to let shadows just float on by. I know a carpe diem moment when I see one.

I want to end with the musical, rhythmical, alliterative last two verses of Annabel Lee by Poe. It's got that perfect flavor to it. The portion in red has a particular literary satisfaction to me. And even though it is sad in content (Poe is grieving a lover taken from him), its fascinating and melodic literary ingredients leave you with a smile on your face, hope in your heart, spring in your step, and a thirst for more Poe(try). And those are the same rhythms in life people learn from and live for — the sad events (sometimes) that leave us with hope, smiles, and springs of life.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we —

Of many far wiser than we —

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.