I’m sure this post will mean little or nothing to those who do not feel as I do about the works of a man whose vision-whether it took us to the far reaches of space or the tattooed landscape of the human body-always brought us home to the deepest landscapes within ourselves. Ray Bradbury always loved fairy tales; the stories that reached into all of us and drew out who we were. Sometimes gentle, sometimes elegiacal, sometimes frightening and forever a part of our new and changing mythology: that is the legacy of Raymond Douglas Bradbury.
This is for you, Ray Bradbury, wherever you are:
I went out to the hazelwood Because a fire was in my head Cut and peeled a hazel wand And hooked a berry to a thread And when white moths were on the wing And moth-like stars were flickering out I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout. When I had laid it on the floor And gone to blow the fire aflame Something rustled on the floor And someone called me by my name. It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossoms in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And vanished in the brightening air. Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands I will find out where she has gone And kiss her lips and take her hand And walk through long green dappled grass And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon The golden apples of the sun.
–The Song of Wandering Aengus
by William Butler Yeats
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