I Graph Relationships

Novelists are actually mathematicians.

We graph the interplay of conversation

Show the probabilities of human interaction

Write equations for the human heart

Breaking down the large and infinite into

Personal chunks of people

 

There is gravity in relationships

The come hither/go away in love

Mapped out with the words of an author

Factoring out a person from

The role they play in their lives

 

The orbit of people around God

Whomever they believe a deity to be

Sucked in by faith and an idea

So much bigger than who they are.

Other people spin around, drawn close

But somehow never touching.

 

Mathematics is poetry is people

We echo the patterns of the people before us

Who echo the patterns of the world.

What patterns, what poems, what dreams.

And this is why I write.

 

Bead Poem

Twelve year olds aren’t good at fundraising.

But I did it anyway.

I sold about ten dollar’s worth

Of beaded animals for my sister’s

Mission trip.

I wanted to help.

So I did.

I have bead critters somewhere

Or I did before the moves.

All with names in different sizes,

Skunks and a lochness and a duck

Snow man, mice. Lots of mice.

One rabbit.

Not stuffed animals, not cuddly.

But I made something.

Spheres and stories of my childhood,

Audio books and colors, patterns.

So much loss in growing up, dicvorce.

Where my spheres, but perhaps

Time to let them go.

I mourn them more than my father (they were

there far more than he) Relics of a simpler time.

Soft and rounded memories, taken over

By quilts and cloth and love.

More practical, more fun, more involved.

I still miss the quiet rhythm,

Reminder of my nimble fingers.

Language my new beads, new craft.

Less messy, cheaper. More portable.

Somehow less tangible.