ISSN 1758-6488
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Three poems Poetry |
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The coming on of a maths brain
The
world
unfurled
unfurling
all over again –
for a real mathematician
a walk round the block must be a symphony swirling,
all
those
perfect
ratios.
Though also I guess
there must be ratios that clash –
where I see the green lawn clashing with the blue windows,
he
sees
what would
be good squares
of window and lawn
ruined by the wrong proportion
of the (I think) beautifully cream coloured front door.
And
what
of all
the other
senses, touch and smell
and taste and hearing? My brother
could tell you music is maths, obviously the fall
from
note
to note
and the count
of skipped sound amounts
to what music is all about,
but are there similarly mathematical chefs out
there,
who
tell you
star anise
(being twenty-one)
can sit next to ginger (thirteen)
but in a mixture with saffron (four) could never please,
the
maths
does not
allow it?
No wonder I get
cooking so wrong, no math brain yet
developed in me, though like late growing wisdom teeth
my
math
brain may
I think be
coming on, today
perhaps the day its growth begins…
Tonight when we curl up in bed, I’ll measure our match.*
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*If we don’t fit the golden mean I’ll unwrite these lines,
reverse the poem’s onward growth,
hold on to the both
of us as
the maths
that
counts.
