Ars Poetica Poem by John a'Beckett

Snatch up a time, swift as Pythagoras,
wandering off his mathematic thought
deep down a Samos side-street, hears
far from soft Pythia and loud agoras
a black-smith’s beating hammers
clanking down on the rigid anvil
each clunk a different weight but
then continuing still higher to
repeat the same notes after eight.

Catch underneath the very crag of us
out of that hard rock Samos cave
pitched at our superstitions, fears:
the logorythmic of our grammars
as you climb the peak octave
in figures that would stagger us-
look up to his skies and pierce
our humdrum to the deep hum
of the Music of the Spheres.