the math teacher walked through the door
and went straight to the empty blackboard.
He did not say a word, did not look
at the class. He drew a perfect circle.
Then with his back to our eyes,
he began to write the proof for the area
of a circle. His chalk clicked against the emptiness,
filling the space with points x and y and
cos and sin and theta and n and limits and infinity.
The room was cold. The proof was brief
and elegant. He stood back and crossed his arms
over his chest as he stared at the work.
That, he said in a voice both humbled and grand,
is more beautiful than any poem ever written.
Though I could not feel any warmth for the proof,
nor for the man who averted our gaze, I did admire
his reverence, and drew in my notebook
an imperfect circle more like the shape of a peach—
something sweet and golden and soft,
its juice about to spill across the page.
Archive for October, 2014
After Reading an Equation for How to Measure Gross National Happiness in Bhutan, I Remember the Day in College When
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged calculus, circle, equation, math, peach, poem, poetry on October 21, 2014| 1 Comment »
Fermata
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, life, poem, poetry, time on October 19, 2014| 2 Comments »
Sometimes, astonished by beauty
the heart fumbles the next beat
and the breath stops—it sounds awful,
right? but you know as I do that these
are the finest moments in life,
when we somehow escape the bells
of the hours and shackles of language
and wade in the edgeless fields of infinity.
But then the involuntary nervous system
kicks in again with its relentless drive
to pulse, inhale, exhale, and blink, and the brain
begins to rifle for a word or two to explain, to share,
perhaps to prove what a strange and beautiful
terrible marvel just happened.
Ah, But the Scent of Spruce Still Comes In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, seeing, thoughts, vision on October 17, 2014| 1 Comment »
one leaf near the eye
covers an entire forest—
I begin to suspect
I have thousands of thoughts
like leaves
Perhaps Whole Is Not What I Aspire To
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged moment, poem, poetry, truth on October 16, 2014| 4 Comments »
It had not yet hit the cement floor
and shattered into incalculable smithereens.
I was, of course, in a hurry.
It was, of course, glass.
I can freeze it, the moment
I knew the bottle was going to fall
and there was not a thing
I could do to stop it—
that moment as brief as when
I decided to tell the truth
after he asked the question
I hoped he would never ask.
All those shards—they never
go back to a whole. How the sunlight
gathers in them, thousands of prisms
scattered all over the floor.
Tasseography
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, tasseography, tea on October 15, 2014| 1 Comment »
is this a poem
about tea, how it burns
when the lips are too eager
*
fennel, chicory, cardamom—
it always smells sweeter
than it tastes
*
the bottom of the cup,
the bottom of my thirst—
these are never the same
*
Darjeeling, Darjeeling—
ask me if I’d like some so
I might tell you yes, yes
*
tell me the truth
I say to the tea leaves, but
I don’t ask my real question
The Very Secret Admirer Almost Confesses
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alphabet menagerie, blank verse, poem, poetry, secret, x on October 14, 2014| 3 Comments »
X marks each spot where I would like to kiss
you, dear. That’s why this map is full of them,
though I will never show this map to you.
I’m too afraid to tell you how I really
feel, so in each letter I have written
you, I’ve hidden xs somewhere, secret
kisses veiled in talk of other things.
For instance, when I wrote to you about
the xenops on the branch outside our house—
ridiculous, of course. Those birds are native
to the tropics. Or the time I wrote
about the mile-long xylophone? There was
no xylophone. Just one more buried kiss.
I got no x-rays of my hip, nor did
I spot a Xiphias gladius on a deep
sea fishing trip—those swordfish are elusive.
That is why there’s talk of chromosomes
in all my letters, x most frequently.
I know it’s silly. Hiding all these kisses
in these letters to you, none of which
I’ve ever sent. I keep them in this box
beside the map, then hide the box beneath
my bed. And this confession goes there, too,
sealed with a kiss I’d rather give to you.
When October Goes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, fall, loss, love, poem, poetry on October 13, 2014| 1 Comment »
And now we come to the part of autumn
which is more fell than falling.
It’s hard to not miss the gold,
just as it’s hard to not miss the lips
of your lover when he’s gone.
You tell yourself that absence
makes the heart grow. Your self
is not impressed. You tell yourself
that the absence
is beautiful. But absence today is
absence—an inability to be present,
and your thoughts are anywhere
but here—in fact, they have gone to one
specific anywhere where it’s still
gold and warm and the heart
is so full it can’t hear a word anyone says
in an attempt to warn it
about how things change.
Wild Rose Goes Shopping for a Coffin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged alter ego, coffin, death, life, poem, poetry on October 13, 2014| 5 Comments »
Wild Rose Goes Shopping for a Coffin
Not the one with airplanes painted on it.
Though it was fun to climb inside and pretend
she was the pilot, passing out barf bags to imaginary corpses.
Not the bamboo one, too bamboo-ey.
Not the willow one lined with wool. It scratched her face
during her afternoon nap. The salesman really didn’t like
the whole nap thing, but Wild Rose just invited him in to join her.
Not the sixteen-gauge stainless steel with hermetic seals.
Sure it looked durable, but when she danced in it,
it made such a racket, and not the kind of racket she liked.
The mahogany, too somber. And the blue and white veneer
reminded her of her Holly Hobby lunchbox from second grade.
Well, she told the salesman, there’s nothing here for me.
Stepping out into the sharp autumn wind, she’d never felt so alive.
Little Lie
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged expectation, gratitude, poem, poetry, relationship on October 11, 2014| 2 Comments »
Today it is blessing enough
that I did not drop the green vase,
did not lose my son’s place in his book,
did not spill the full bottle of wine nor trip
on my own feet while running, did not fall into a puddle.
So much that didn’t happen to be grateful for.
We did not get lost in the corn maze for hours
without our warm coats. I did not drop a baby.
The river did not overflow its banks. The raspberries
were a little sour, but at least they had no mold.
And as for that sweet thing that you didn’t say
that I wished you would have, well,
that detail seems so small amidst all these other
wonderful things that didn’t happen
that it’s no big deal you didn’t say it.
I barely noticed it was missing at all.
The Superheroes Look like Us, Too
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged monster, poem, poetry on October 9, 2014| 4 Comments »
If only they had stayed under the bed,
those monsters. They were easier then
to avoid. Looking back, they were even
kinda cute under there, what with their drool
and blue shag and enormous unblinking eyes.
I never once noticed the stink of them then.
Now, the monsters look just like you and me,
permeating everything with the scent
of second-hand fear, the smell of something inside
that has died—joy, perhaps? Or maybe the death
of the sense that anything, even love, is possible.