Why do some lines of poetry move us more than others?
Why do seemingly innocuous lines, lines that many might glide over, lines unsavoured by the mass of men, so enrapture us?
Why did this line, from the third stanza of Keats’ ‘To Autumn’, inspire tears in me late last night, compelling me to reread it, making my heart thud harder against my chest?
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
The answer is death incarnate.
Humans have this everlasting eidetic memory that imprints upon their DNA when a generation-transcending trauma takes place.
There is credence in past-life regressions.
One person believes themselves to have been Richard III, felt the weight of his sword held aloft as his steed galloped him into battle.
Perhaps they were.
After all, there is no reason why someone born in the freezing cold Western Hemisphere should develop a deathly phobia of snakes. Except for the fact that somewhere along the line a fear that kept one’s ancestors alive on another continent imprinted itself within the genes.
When a line of poetry apprehends us, arrests us, seizes us, and we don’t know why – perhaps what we’re actually seeing is an inward glimpse of life before death.
Past life regression, one’s last moments, an entire lifetime flashing before one’s eyes – these memories are barred to us, accessible only occasionally, fleetingly, through deep meditation, snatches of deja vu, and glimpses of poetry that makes us remember that which we already knew, that which we already experienced.
There’s a part of the brain that MRI scans show as being completely dormant for the entirety of one’s life. But this part lights up like Christmas tree in the last moments of one’s life.
It’s like a hit of DMT. It provides warmth and searing hot light. You see your loved ones, those who passed away, grandparents and parents and those lost before their time, beckoning you forward.
The last moments of death can be terrifying.
But there is an imperceptible nanosecond, imperceptible only to outward observers, that stretches on for close to infinity, in which the dying person is completely comforted, completely loved.
This is proof of God.
There is no evolutionary reason to develop a part of the brain that comforts one in their final moment before death, as they cannot pass on their genes.
This is proof of a Divine Maker.
Like a craftsman who makes a perfect motor in a watch, one so beautiful in its construction, but ultimately has no bearing on the smooth running of the timepiece across its lifetime.
This is proof not only of a Divine Maker, but a Benign Maker, a Creator Who Loves Us.
And we glimpse this in lines of the most inspired poetry, poetry that is most uniquely inspirational and moving to us.
Perhaps we don’t go all the way back to our past lives and deaths.
Perhaps perfect poetry, poetry we do not understand but feel intensely, is a quick regression to a time without autonomy. Back to our baby years. Back to those years when dream and reality mingle. Back to those years that feel like memories, but were only a fever dream that never happened.
Does it matter if this theory is true?
No.
It sounds crazy to most people who are not open-minded.
But if you are extremely open-minded, it doesn’t sound that crazy.
Poetry isn’t a science, and this theorem doesn’t need proving, nor does it need to be false even were it to be proved so.
It’s true if it leads us on to further enlightenment.
It’s true if it opens us up enough so that we can relish poetry in a new light, approach poetry with a new pair of eyes, a heart revived.
And in there, somewhere, we might find our truth.