I guess Jack Kimball was criticizing me (in his post of Fri. 8/6). I could be wrong. It's hard to tell sometimes where he's directing his barbs.

My ruminations are often belabored, for sure. But I don't think it's impossible to understand what I'm saying. The point about poetic mimesis:

If you believe, or at least accept the possibility, that nature, the universe, reflects some kind of spiritual order, some creative beauty, signs of consciousness - the means or meaning or purpose of which may be far beyond our comprehension - yet nevertheless it seems there - then, among the many possible means of its representation (its mimesis) - scientific discourse, prose argument, etc. - poetry might exhibit some special capabilities. Why? Because its means are "number", vivid (vitalist) imagery, and metaphor. What you might call a structural analogy could be in effect, which relates the beauty-in-itself of poetic language to the beauty-in-itself of creation. ("Number, weight, and measure" - cf. Augustine's classic defense of sacred music - his definition of which included poetry).

The vitalism of poetry is one of its throwback qualities - G. Vico has a lot to say about this. A world ruled by spiritual forces is certainly archaic and unscientific, and a religious perspective for today would have to take this into account (cf. Keith Ward's books, Religion and Revelation and Religion and Creation). One of the big contemporary problems is the way sacred scriptures which are essentially poetic in nature are fronted with doctrinaire, literalist polemics - the new superstition.