I was still feeding when the book was shut, I was reading!!
Is that what the fly was thinking to itself,
it got stuck at 'quibbling', the least appealing word
in a book on problems of philosophy.
Were you attracted to the two b's
I'm sorry, I didn't notice you
But you died by the words of a profound thinker
He'd have been proud to know you landed on
Philonous' dialogue with Hylas.
I'm sorry, I didn't see you fly by
you didn't die, in my mind. But
it is your mind that matters
if you were paying attention to Philonous.
You were most certainly a fruit fly
sorry I squished you
were you after the fruit of wisdom
I tried to flick you, but you stayed stuck
I admire you for sticking by words
You mean something to me, now that you
are dead, I think.
But that means you are alive in my mind
This is an ode to you
the wisest of flies
You ate the fruit, that hides in plain sight
humans are flies are humans
we seek the fruit that diminishes
gives us the feeling it nourishes
not the fruit that grows when it falls
its the fruit of knowledge you sought
this is an ode to you fly and fruit you sought.
I was re-reading one of my favorite books by the awesome logician, philosopher, Nobel-laureate Bertrand Russell, 'Problems of Philosophy', When I opened a page, I saw a dead fly, poor guy had gotten stuckbetween the pages. This is in a chapter where Bertrand discusses the nature of matter and how we perceive it through our mind, references Berkeley's 'Three dialogues between Philonous and Hylas'. The fly was my inspiration for this short poem.