John Dee

Poem by Bob Ward

What’s known as his ‘magic mirror’
  is polished obsidian
  that reflected his obsessive
  probing the dark surface
  for a glimpse of angels
  harbouring divine secrets
  drawn from all times past
  and those even yet to come.

My own ‘magic mirror’
  is a tablet, glossy black,
  that lights up at my touch.
I tap in John Dee’s name
  to summon up the phantom
  and there he is, sombre,
  an image of solemnity.
We face each other
  across four centuries
  but however much
  he directs his gaze
  into my receptive eyes,
  no angel will be seen.

John Dee (1527-1608) was a scholar, geographer, mathematician, and alchemist, who found favour at the court of Elizabeth. He spent much time gazing into his ‘magic mirror’ or a crystal ball.

---

Comments

Thank you for the poem.
It has made me turn to Wikipedia to find out a little more about John Dee.
Alchemy has had a bad press over the centuries, but my reading is Dee’s motivation was to ‘glimpse angels’ in order to learn more of the secrets of nature, rather than the pursuit of changing base metal into gold, the aim one tends to associate with alchemy (and whose failure certainly has got it a bad press…). 
But Dee seems to have combined a “strong, lifelong penchant for secrecy”,  with a farsighted and radical approach to his mathematics.  He wrote a “Mathematical Preface” to a translation of Euclid which “was meant to promote the study and application of mathematics by those without a university education, and was popular and influential among the ‘mechanicians’: a growing class of technical craftsmen and artisans” [both quotes: Wikipedia]. Furthermore, it was of course in English!
Thank you again for the poem. I really like it. I also like how it draws such strong parallels with our own ‘magic mirrors’ of today – a magic mirror which I would be loathe to be without, and whose light I am of course typing these words into.

By p.nicholas760@btinternet.com on 28th July 2022 - 20:42

---

Please login to add a comment