Notes of an Alchemist

As it turns out, the poems of Loren Eiseley, gathered under the title Notes of an Alchemist, are some of the very best I’ve read. As I mentioned a few days ago, the book was published in 1972 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, and I was lucky enough to find a copy here in a Salem used bookstore. A quick search online, though, shows the volume is still readily available — as it should be. About halfway through, I’m amazed at such a beautiful blend of art and science; of hard factual knowledge and the shadowy depths of a man’s longings, memories, and dreams. The poems are as universal as they are personal. This is the very thing one hopes to discover while sifting through the stacks. These sensitive, deeply observed poems, with their lines of cosmic grandeur woven in sedimentary layers across the pages, remind me of what I feel I have long since known: there is timelessness in the brevity of our lives; greatness in the simplest of our everyday acts; and we shouldn’t expect a bit of it to survive.

[ 2148 ]