the mathematician
(2) mappings,
(3) permutings,
(5) patterns free-mingling
(7) on the page of the poet
(11) of Number. ‘tis the heartbeat of Heaven she
(13) craves to feel – resonances – to hear – harmonies – to
(17) see – beauties lost like children in the city swamp of lights and shuffling
(19) feet kicking the pavement never gazing upwards in fear their genius would burst
(23) free of the benumbing thuds of concrete and whisk them away to-wards infinities primal…
This poem has been published in volume 9 of Writes of Passage (Bucks County’s annual anthology of high school poetry) as well as on JoAnne Growney’s blog Intersections – Poetry with Mathematics.
handshake
the hand that has hacked meat
that has felled oaks for firewood
that has caught spit-coated baseballs with a worn-down mitt
that has hurled fistfuls of snow at a sunny New Year’s sky
that has stroked the fevered cheek of a dying child
that has smashed window-glass with burning, bloodied rage
that has shot the rabid hound that nearly bit a toddler
meets
the hand that has painted watercolors
that has fluttered on the keys of a flute
that has brushed the luscious mane of a beloved mare
that has tossed tarnished pennies into the fountain of wishes
that has penned impassioned sonnets that fell on loveless ears
that has fingered a bottle of painkillers on a near-desperate night
that has served the soup that nourished a homeless mom-to-be
sending tremors to the Earth.
A Fresh Breath
Hark, the chill rustling of chlorophyll sheets,
the leaves of Nature’s Bible.
Her true cantabile whisper – raspy
with influenza of industry – I thinks returns,
phantom but full-felt quiver of air
clasping, caressing our flutter of existence.
The gentle breeze of lyricism,
the jarring gust of chromaticism – both
in one breathtaking breath of Mother Earth – neither caught whole heart in spirit of Man, save
a momentary letter, a transient note
that makes us know!
Shh! can you hear
the time-touched tune of anima ancestral? We, overtones in the wind’s soulful timbre. We, Nature, with Man just one sweet pitch. A fresh inventive Dissonance enriched in harmonies old.
Hark, the sublime song of Life,
a scherzo celebration of air.
Inhale, exhale. Find we holy
Aspiration in natural
Respiration – coaxed to Conscious
by the wind – stimulated –
transcending caffeine and drug and sugar heights
– liberating real for the chorus of
Beautiful Truth!
A version of this poem was published in Writes of Passage (Bucks County’s annual anthology of high school poetry), volume 8, as well as in Teen Ink’s print magazine (Oct. 2017) and on its website.
