title inspired by Jen Soong’s poem of the same name
Two thousand eleven. That’s what it all adds up to
when we add my great nephew’s birth year with his older
brother’s birth year, plus my daughter’s birth year,
plus my own. Two thousand eleven. This number
relates to my daughter’s ease in the world and
my great nephew’s joy in making art out of acorns
and my own thrill in writing and my other great nephew’s
pleasure in finding numbers to add together. We are,
of course, much more than the sum of our parts.
But we are, also, of course, shaped by such numbers—
how many times we have walked by the sea together,
how many times we have circled the kitchen island playing chase,
how many bounces we have done on the trampoline
and how many pie day races we’ve completed together.
There is this equation in which tag and I Spy and tickling
and peregrine falcons and the tears in my eyes equal
fierce and wild love. There is this piece of paper covered
in carefully shaped numbers. There are the parabolic curves
of our smiles. There is this scent of woodsmoke
still clinging to my hair.
Posts Tagged ‘math’
And in the End, What Does A Life Add Up To?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, love, math, numbers on November 30, 2025| 4 Comments »
Love, Like Math
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, math, wave on July 14, 2024| 4 Comments »
People think it’s a moment of Eureka!
But it’s more like a wave,
said the mathematician,
and though he was speaking
of inventing new math,
I thought of discovering new love,
a wave of startling amplitude,
the thrill of energy passing through,
a trough of fear and a crest
of yes. A whole lotta blue.
I don’t remember much
of physics, but I recall
the surge, the crash,
the holding my breath.
I remember the certainty
I would drown, the equal terror
of finding myself on dry land.
It’s not just a flash of insight, he said.
I thought of how long I’ve been
solving for love.
Yeah, I said. I understand.
On Pi Day, I Remember Baking Pies with My Son
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged baking, constant, love, math, mother, pi, pie, son on March 14, 2022| 4 Comments »
3.14.22
Tonight, instead of serving pie,
I serve the memory of pie—
serve the memory of pumpkins
we grew in the garden
then processed into custard.
Serve the memory of years
we made gluten-free crusts.
Serve the memory of your rhubarb plant
that will rise more robust this spring,
memory of thinly sliced apples,
key limes, lemon merengue,
and all those tart cherries
we harvested together.
I serve the joy we shared
in celebrating a constant
necessary to the geometry of the world.
I serve the thrill in knowing
there is something
both transcendental and infinite,
something death can never touch,
something ubiquitous that defines
the world we inhabit.
And though it is math,
it is no less love,
something that helps us
understand our universe,
something that hints
at the grand design
that amidst great catastrophe
continues to hold it all together.
Reconciling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, loss, math, mother, reconciling, son on October 12, 2021| 18 Comments »
And there on the statement,
between the hardware store expense
and the do-it-yourself car wash,
was the charge
for Henderson and Sons Funeral Home.
How to reconcile this tide of loss?
Nowhere in my books
is a column for devastation.
No account for anguish,
for the loss of a slender young man
who loved ice cream
and cherries and helped me
roast pumpkins for pie.
There’s no way this number
on the statement can equate
to the boy who threw rocks in the river,
who snuggled with me
on the couch before school,
who built cars out of cardboard
and shish kebob sticks.
I can’t make it equal the seventeen years
we swam and hiked and baked
and sang—nor the years
he wept and raged and ached,
those years I learned how to pray.
In these unmoored days,
when I am more driftwood than boat,
I float through the churning wreckage of hope
and beg myself, stay open.
I lack the callous math
for such reconciliations.
I sob into the columns,
and the heart takes the lead—
it knows nothing of counting, of sums.
It knows only to love, to love.
Code
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged binary, code, love, math, uncertainty on July 18, 2020| 2 Comments »
inspired by Wayne Muller
I do not love you in 0s and 1s,
some straightforward proposition—
our love, my dear, is gray, is .772,
refuses to be simplified, reduced.
There is maybe in us. And perhaps.
Wouldn’t it be easier if love were like math—
a logical answer we could arrive at,
with binary digits to map it all out.
Instead, a word, a tone, a should
makes what is certain slip off its string
and the bits and values keep changing.
Somewhere between the 0 and 1
is a meadow where we might watch the moon,
a garden where outlandish fruits still grow,
a mountain we will never stop climbing.
Wanting a Fractal Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, fibonacci sequence, golden spiral, humanity, love, math, nature, pattern on April 5, 2020| 7 Comments »
Eadem mutata resurgo
Latin motto: Changed, I rise again
Sometimes in spring
I can still find the dried seeds
of the mountain mahogany
clinging to the ends
of the branches—
feathery golden spirals,
logarithmic and light.
How the universe
loves a pattern,
an elegant mathematics—
this same spiral is found
in spider webs, sunflowers,
snail shells, cyclones, the arms
of galaxies, the human ear,
even in the nerves of my cornea
that help me to see
the very pattern that
gives me the ability to see.
I want to find the self-similar spiral curve
that informs kindness and strength
as it spreads through a people. I want
to find the equation that calculates
an exponentially growing radius of love.
I want to find the dynamic beauty in us
that amplifies as it moves out
with ever increasing speed
from the infinite center.
I want to embody the trustworthy constant
that inspires our species to be better,
want to know the recursive courage that drives us
to thrive in difficult times.
Our potential, endless, yet humble
as last year’s seed in my hand, ready
to be planted, to sprout, to grow.
One Innovation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged curve, innovation, line, math on March 3, 2020| 2 Comments »
Poet’s Respond in Rattle!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged math, numbers, poem, poetry, poets respond, Rattle, space, Voyager 2 on December 14, 2018| 2 Comments »
Hi friends,
the poem from a few days ago about the Voyager 2 leaving our heliosphere, “By the Numbers,” was accepted last night by Rattle.com for their series Poets Respond, poems about the news. Here is a link to the text and audio!
One on the Floor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged frustration, math, poem, poetry on November 26, 2018| 1 Comment »
After Playing on the Parent Team in the Mathlete Olympiad
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, math, poem, poetry on June 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Odd joy in the pink eraser rubbings,
joy in the silence just after the timer says start,
joy in the turning of the inner cogs
and the way that the numbers
sprint across the page,
joy in the scratch of the pencil, the stumble
of confidence, in the scrapping of the route
so that a new route can emerge,
joy in arriving at an answer,
an answer so certain you can label it
with units and circle it and know
that tomorrow it would turn out
the same way again, not like any
other part of your life.
Story Problem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged math, poem, poetry, problem on March 2, 2016| 10 Comments »
If I were paddling a green canoe
traveling a rate of x miles
per hour and you were
in a blue canoe traveling
at a rate of y miles per hour,
and the rate of the stream
was a given, which already
we know is a lie,
how hard would I need
to paddle, in which force equals
d, to make the canoe
a field of rye where we are
wading through golden
waist-high grass
and no longer traveling
in separate canoes?
And let’s say the field
had a breeze travelling
from the west at p miles per hour,
then if I tossed you a dream
and you were standing
due east of me, how long
would it take the dream
to reach you? I know,
not enough facts, and
I have included too many
irrelevant details,
though we both know they’re essential.
This is why math is only good
for certain kinds of problems.
Of course the field was golden.
Though I wouldn’t mind
if it were green, if there
were blue flax flowers
bobbing in the breeze,
a whole river of them
nodding at us as if to say,
yes, that’s right, it doesn’t
make sense, that’s okay,
that’s okay.
Yet Another Story Problem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged humanness, longing, math, poem, poetry, solution, story problem on October 25, 2014| 3 Comments »
It always seems as if it should add up,
except it doesn’t. Not like the story problems
did in school. No. In this equation, x
represents the rate at which sweet peas
climb an orchard’s wire fence, and y
is the speed that snowflakes fall without
accounting for wind. And z is the reason
that all those snowflakes never seem to find
your waiting tongue. Don’t take it personally. It’s statistics.
Then s is the way that the low light at sunrise
makes every other variable shine. Which changes
everything. Until f is the sloth-like velocity
of a deeply held sorrow just starting to mend. And g
is the relative effect of one extended open hand.
And h is a pair of seahorses with their tails
intertwined. Or maybe it’s a flock of seagulls
returning to the land. Or maybe it’s crazy
to try to assign meaning to any of this.
It seems obvious. The heart just wants to love.
But then y is the hole the size of Saturn that
you sometimes feel ringing inside your gut.
And g is the swan-like gracefulness
you thought you’d have once you grew up.
But d is the way you are more like a squirrel.
And j is the value of a sand dollar saved
for twenty years. And p is the sweet scent
of strawberries, ripe. And k is the surfboard
you never bought. And o is the way you often feel
like a sidewinder—edging slyly, slantly along.
You dream of straight lines, of answers that work out
neatly, efficiently, sure of themselves. But already,
x is a starfish, and y is just a homophone, and t is
the way you see yourself sometimes, scribbling away
as if it’s all some kind of test. And s is the sweet compassion
you offer yourself, even now as you watch yourself draw up
a new proof, determined to solve it right this time.
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 »
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.
What Difference Does it Make
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attractors, loss, math, poem, poetry, purpose on January 8, 2014| 2 Comments »
Look out the kitchen window
into the night, and all you see through the pane
is a vague version of yourself,
not quite transparent,
but substanceless.
Perhaps car lights pass
through the shape of your head.
And then it is just your reflection
imprinted on darkness again.
*
I wanted to write you a letter
about the dream I had last night.
We were talking on the phone.
This is how I knew it was a dream.
*
A chained male dog
will strain his leash
when he can smell
a bitch in heat.
*
Try to listen beyond the window.
Beyond the refrigerator hum.
Beyond the sound
of your own breathing in, breathing out.
*
There was a necklace in the dream,
a strand of green diamonds,
one I lost long ago.
There it was in my hands again,
and I thought to myself,
as I balanced it in an armful of things,
you are going to lose it again.
*
What do you hear?
*
One can measure it,
the dog’s desire,
by the force of his tug,
the direction of his pull.
In modern mathematics,
in the language of dynamics,
we call this an attractor,
a purpose or motive that connects us
with our virtual future.
*
The point: it is not
the past that drives us.
Not even the greatest loss.
We are pulled toward that
which has not yet happened.
The future yearns for us.
*
The phone rings,
the plot thickens.
The woman in the window
reaches toward the receiver.
The voice on the other end
is not yours.
*
You have prepared
your whole life for this moment,
the one you let go
right now.
*
Machines do not have internal purpose.
The typewriter writes what the poet types.
The car goes where the driver goes.
The refrigerator chills what is put inside.
But everything that is alive
is pulled toward certain attractors
that help with growth, survival,
continuation of the species.
The honey bee moves to the flower.
The mud wasp digs a funneled nest.
The black widow spiders will eat
the other offspring in the sac.
So who could explain why,
though a letter will never arrive at your door,
I watch as the woman in the window
takes out her pen, consider how much
she must long to write you a letter,
watch her as she stares
at her empty page.