DocAndersen
the race to beat
the random number generator to 14
started in the darkroom where the people
gathered around a candle
and chanting random numbers
they clasped hands.
on the table
a screen
lighting the entire room
number flashing
one after another
the race was on to fourteen.
But no one gets
to fourteen without stopping along
the way to admire the lovely flowers
and smell the homecooked meal
14
it has two faces
fourteen has two paths
but no one gets there
to fourteen
the easy way.
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Shockingly I wrote this in a college math class, have you ever sat in math class and glazed over?
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Yes
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No
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I always preferred some noise while doing math homework though. I took it to bars and stuff. One day I’m in the student union coffee shop doing that and a guy sits down. (turns out he was a Russian poet) — “What are you doing?” – “I’m doing calculus homework.” – “I know that! I mean WHAT are you doing?” – “What?” – “WHY are you doing? … What is the reason? You cannot teach people to love each other with x and y.” – “Oh, OK.”, I said.
The attraction of x and y is interesting. I sit in a world where the math I learned out weighs the poetry I write.
But your story reminds me of when I too, like that Russian poet tried to change the world!
Mathematics is an exquisite language. Eloquent and well, is it not perfect?
I used to joke that I would form a new spirituality from observational astronomy (one planet), biological anthropology (one species), and the book would be written in mathematics (no translations, no misinterpretations, applicable to the real world, etc…). It would be useless to war mongers (a problem throughout history)
Math is our best language perhaps ….
Math sadly is also the language of war mongers.
Is it really? I thought those guys cheated their way through college and stopped with derivatives. 1 semester of calculus – they can’t really speak the language.
In fact it is, all about vectors, acceptable loss and cost. it is.
Oh, I know. Reality bites.
The most famous problem ever –> You fire a rocket into the air …
and rain falls to the ground.
Did you poke a hole in the clouds?
It describes our world so whatever we bring here …. I was thinking of the “relative Maximum”… I had a discussion about this with Aldo from the Museo della Tortura (Italy) when we were installing the stuff and his point was that the time and effort and resources put into developing those objects could have advanced societies if it had been put elsewhere.
It is a global language – it’s what we got.
That would of course be the question would it not. Is there more?
I think I’m one of the few that likes math. I know a lot of people who hate math.
i like math and use it every day. I just zoned out when the professor was talking sometimes.
Good job, Doc! I used to zone out on those days when it was unbearably hot; and we didn’t have a/c in the classrooms in those days…Your head would spin from the heat.
i remember the days of no AC. Our school was brand new, and the first in Bloomington Indiana to get air-conditioning. I was in the first-first grade. But the year before I was in kindergarten in a school without AC. yuck.
Many times I zoned out of math class. But never wrote poetry. Good job.
I cannot tell you how many times that got me in trouble in high school
Stop daydreaming and looking out the window!
ah so you were there 🙂 I couldn’t help it. I spent a lot of time after school being taught science.
I have always been careful about mathematics. And now, even though I’m 60, I’m helping out with my grandchildren.
that is awesome – but 60 is young! You have much life to live!
I bet that was a fun hike. I love sandstone cayons. So much fun, and beautiful. Bored in math class? NO way!! 🙂
I was – ergo this poem. sometimes I mind wandered.