Nautilus

(for W. Evans Hoyle, with apologies to Allen Ginsberg)

I saw one of the best minds of his generation go on a

graphic voyage,

examining depicting drawing illustrating the most

exquisite of cephalopods,

dragging himself away from a life of medical anatomy to

skillfully dissect creatures of dark seas that live in

coiled shells,

who practised teuthology at every opportunity,

who indexed Sepiidae Gonatidae Sepiolidae Loliginidae

Pyroteuthis among others,

who described Trivia in splendid detail of seemingly little

consequence,

who brought head-foots and bobtails out of the shadows

into the light through the affection of the inkpot,

who portrayed Octopus marmoratus like Holbein’s

blackwork or Avercamp’s wintery scenes,

who wrote a lengthy Report on the Cephalopoda

collected by H.M.S. Challenger during 1873–1876,

who had some of his type specimen destroyed for others

to move theirs forward,

who created a library of books prints and reprints

monographs and obscurities,

and who was the first Director of the National Museum of

Wales and stayed for 16 years,

ah, Dr. Hoyle, your name will forever conjure up

impressions of the deep,

evoking associations of unchartered waters alive with

squid and cuttlefish,

your images have left me amazed and in wonder of

worlds unseen and shells untouched.